


In This White Wave I Am Sinking

by queeniegalore



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:51:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeniegalore/pseuds/queeniegalore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He felt like he wasn’t really living, like he was in an in-between state, something that came between war and real life, something like purgatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters nor have any connection with the real people the characters are based on. This is pure non-profit fiction.
> 
> Very fondly dedicated to meeks00 , without whom it would never, ever have been finished. Her encouragement and amazingly kind words (and her taking up arms in the war to make me use full-stops instead of commas) are what brought this fic to life, and for that I can't possibly thank her enough. <3 Mika <3 Plus, a huge shout-out to schlicky , who bravely stepped up to the breach for a last second beta. Thanks again, bb! Title and cut text from Silence by Delirium feat. Sarah McLachlan

_Come on out, come on over  
Help me forget  
Keep the walls from falling on me  
Tumbling in  
  
_This is Love, PJ Harvey  
  
  
There were times in Iraq – not many, but they existed – when Brad had wanted to reach across to the seat next to him and forcibly _gag_ Ray Person. As strange as it seemed back in the States, he still remembered those times, when the stress and the sleep deprivation and the constant fuckery of their superior officers all combined to tip him over the edge. In those moments, the thought of one more word from Ray’s mouth would make him grind his teeth, would make his finger twitch against his gun.  
  
At home, the opposite was true. On the cab ride home from Pendleton, Brad was faced with the first of many silences the US would foist upon him. The driver darted him anxious sideways glances and barely opened his mouth except to ask for directions. There wasn’t even an asinine comment on the weather. It was like he saw Brad’s fatigues and felt the need to stay quiet out of respect, like at a funeral home.  
  
It was fucking depressing.  
  
His house was empty, smelled stale and dusty. He went around and opened all the doors and windows, threw his gear into the washing machine, half-heartedly swiped at the dust on the coffee table. It took him awhile to process the idea that he was _home_ , that this was his home. He stared blankly around and knew he should be grateful, and he was, but it was the first time he’d been alone in months and all he could see was the emptiness.   
  
All he could hear was the silence.  
  
Brad was a loner, but he was self-aware enough to understand that being a loner when no one else is around is no fun. He was kind of appalled as he slowly discovered that sitting alone in his empty house had no appeal – the place he most wanted to be was by himself, surrounded by a platoon of Marines. It was a horrifying thought, yes, but it was so much fucking easier to be alone with Ray chattering away in the background, providing the soundtrack to his life. Now all he had was the sound of the beach, and yeah, it used to be enough. Now it didn’t even come close.  
  
The day after he got home he went to see his parents and knew it was a mistake as soon as his mother laid eyes on him. She clamped her mouth shut and pulled him into a hug, smothering whatever she was going to say in his chest. His father just clapped him on the arm, once, twice, as if that was all that needed to be said. They ushered him into the kitchen and bustled around making lunch, leaving him to try to fill the silence with awkward small talk. That had never been his strong point – he had kind of been relying on them for that – and he faltered, let his mind drift off.  
  
It was like the cab driver all over again. They thought Iraq had changed him, and it had, just not in the ways they expected. They thought he’d come home damaged and fragile, startled by loud noises and disturbed by too much chatter, like a stereotype of a Vietnam vet who was gonna snap and lay everyone out with his nine at the smallest provocation. They didn’t get that he’d spent months of his life surrounded by men and noise, and this sudden hushed-church respect was like being shunted into solitary confinement. His mother looked at him with worried eyes and avoided talking about the war, kept her voice soft. His father hardly looked at him at all.  
  
Over dinner he realised with something like amusement at himself that he seriously missed Ray, that he wished he was here to fill in the gaps. His parents would love Ray, who could be as charming around mothers as he was obnoxious around everyone else in the world. She’d buzz around and worry about how skinny he was, feeding him pie, while Ray kept up a running commentary about everything and made Brad hide his laughter behind a fork.  
  
It’s this thought more than any other that brought home the fact that he wasn’t ready for his war to be over because he wasn’t ready to function without Ray at his side, stepping up to take care of all the things Brad couldn’t. If Rudy were there, he might’ve said that Ray was the ying to Brad’s yang, but Rudy was as far away as the rest of his men, so all Brad knew was that yeah, crazy as it seemed, he missed his whisky-tango goat-fucked mess of an RTO.  
  
~  
  
The days passed too slowly. Brad was on leave, half his company had had leave saved up and scattered to all corners of the country, rushing home to girls and families and relearning how to be civilians. Nate and Poke were still around, but Ray and Walt had bolted back to their home states as soon as possible. Kocher had disappeared, Bryan had redeployed with another unit almost immediately. Trombley was…not someone Brad really felt the urge to hang out with.   
  
And Brad was on his own, ranging around his house like something caught in a zoo, or spending hours in the surf until the sound of the ocean created a deafening white noise, blocking out the silence. He felt like he wasn’t really living, like he was in an in-between state, something that came between war and real life, something like purgatory. He got little glimpses into reality, e-mails from Ray telling him about how he was visiting with Walt. Nate called once, and Poke kept in touch, but Brad felt like he was looking at all this through a window, like they weren’t really in the same place.  
  
Two weeks in, he caved, bought himself a bottle of Jameson’s, and set up shop on his back porch as the sun went down and the moon came up. There was nothing more pathetic than drinking alone. Brad knew this, understood it was the first step towards a long and slippery slope, but that understanding wasn’t enough to stop half the bottle from disappearing down his throat that night as he stared moodily out at the dark ocean. It _was_ probably what made him pick up his phone and thumb down to Ray’s number.  
  
Misery loved company; pathetic, drunken misery positively craved it.  
  
He had one second of clarity before he pressed the call button. It was like the world was wavering in front of his eyes, swelling back and forth with the ocean, and then suddenly it stopped, crystal clear. It wasn’t that it was one in the morning, or that he was blind drink. It was the sheer neediness he felt, the desperation to hear another human voice, and for that voice to be _Ray’s_. Everything was frozen as he thought about that. Everything was soaked in drunk-logic, and suddenly it made perfect sense, after all.  
  
He pictured Ray as he was when he first woke up, eyes bleary and automatically outraged, like he was already pissed off with the world and was prepared to tell it the fuck why in great detail. Ray could start talking before he was even completely awake, and Brad _needed_ that. Needed those words.   
  
He was listening to the phone ring before he even realised he’d pressed the button.  
  
“Brad? What the fuck?”  
  
Brad was slightly thrown, until he remembered the concept of caller ID. Way too much whiskey. He rubbed his eyes, moment of clarity long gone.  
  
“Ray. Ray, it’s me.”  
  
Ray’s pissiness seemed to vibrate right through the phone, and Brad finally felt some of his tension unwind itself.  
  
“Yeah, I’ve established that, homes. I’m a fucking Recon Marine, remember? Any fucking reason why you’ve chosen to call me at oh-dark-thirty?” He paused and his voice sobered. “What’s happened?”  
  
“Nothing – nothing’s happened,” Brad said, cursing himself. He should have known Ray wouldn’t be expecting good news at that time of night. “I just wanted to call and…” _And what, Brad._ He squeezed his eyes closed, head swimming. “And call.”  
  
“Are you serious? What, you just wanted to call and hear my voice? I’m goddamned honoured, Iceman, I’m sure if it wasn’t three a-freaking-m I’d be jumping for joy and everything.”  
  
Oh. Brad had forgotten about the time difference. He heard the flick of a lighter and then a long inhale as Ray lit up. “You smoking in bed, Ray?”  
  
“Fuckin’ A I am, Brad. You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing. I could have been getting laid in here for all you know.”  
  
Brad felt a pang at that, and consciously chose to ignore it. “You wouldn’t have answered the phone in the highly unlikely case of you actually getting laid,” he said, and he listened with interest to the way his voice was slurring. He gazed up at the sky, phone pressed against his cheek, and tried to see if he could catch the moon in motion.  
  
“Wait, are you drunk?” Ray asked, sounding highly amused at this turn of events. Brad squinted one eye shut, he wasn’t sure if the moon was moving or just the clouds around it.   
  
“No I’m not drunk,” he said, lying blatantly. Ray laughed.  
  
“You are! You fucking drunk dialed me, that’s precious.” Brad could hear him shifting around in bed, juggling the phone around. “What, did your finger slip when you tried to call the LT?”  
  
Brad thought about that for a second, thought about calling Nate when he was like this. The idea of Nate seeing anything other than the best of him made him want to cringe. Nate was a man you stood up straight for. Nate brought out the good in everyone, he made Brad want to be a better Marine, a better person.  
  
Ray just made Brad want to be Brad. Warts and all.   
  
“No,” he said slowly. “No, I definitely wanted to talk to you, Ray.”  
  
Silence for a second.   
  
“Well, fuck, Iceman,” Ray said, both of them surprised at Brad’s honestly. Brad leaned against the porch railing and just listened to Ray smoking for a little while, he could picture him lying there, cigarette tip glowing in the gloom.  
  
“You should quit,” he found himself saying, inanely. He didn’t really care if Ray wanted to smoke.  
  
Ray snorted. “Yeah, my girlfriend told me to give up, too,” he said. “Right before she fucking dumped me.”  
  
“Your girlfriend dumped you?” Brad thought he saw the moon slip behind a tree branch, but it could have just been the wind. He kept his eye on it.  
  
“Yeah, like, yesterday. It’s not me, though, you’ll be happy to know. Apparently it’s her.”  
  
Brad didn’t really know what to say, so he went with the obvious. “Bitch.”  
  
Ray sighed, sending it through the phone until Brad almost felt it against his ear. “Nah, she ain’t a bitch. She’s actually kind of amazing, just smarter than I gave her credit for being. Didn’t need to be with a dumb fucking grunt like me.”  
  
That was the stupidest thing Brad had ever heard Ray say. He wanted to write a book about Ray’s genius, wanted to get up with a megaphone and tell the whole world, except he didn’t have the words for it, especially not tanked off half a bottle of Jameson’s. If some stupid hick chick didn’t know what she had, then too fucking bad for her, in Brad’s opinion.   
  
He thought about how to tell all this to Ray, and came up with a blank. And then he was speaking anyway. “You should come back out to Cali, Ray. Clean your palate.”  
  
Ray laughed again. “You want me to voluntarily come out to the land of wheat-grass dick sucks to _clean my palate_? Are you fucking high as well as drunk? Fucking hippy-ass state – do they remove your nuts on entry or is it more of a gradual thing, Brad, tell me because the Marines have protected me so far but I’m really interested in that aspect of turning into a lesbian and I figure you’re the expert…”  
  
And he was off. Brad dropped back until he was lying flat, head resting on the doormat, and just listened to Ray rant in one ear and the shush of the waves in the other. He didn’t even notice he was starting to drift off until the tone of Ray’s voice changed.  
  
“Brad? Brad, are you fucking sleeping? I’m fucking wounded, dude.”  
  
“What? No, I’m awake. I’m good.”  
  
“You idiot.” Ray sounded fond, exasperated. “Hang the fuck up and go to bed.”  
  
Brad lumbered to his feet, heading inside. “No, no, I’m fine,” he said, repositioning himself on the couch. “Keep talking.”  
  
The neediness in his tone frightened him for a second. He thought that meant he was starting to sober up, but yeah – the idea of being left in his house with nothing but the silence for company scared him.   
  
Maybe Ray picked up on it. Brad hoped he did, and then immediately hoped he didn’t. Either way, he didn’t hang up.  
  
“Fine, fucknuts. If you wanna pay to hear me talk shit, I’m happy to oblige. You got it for free all through Iraq, but whatever, Ray-Ray lives to give. It doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the night and I have to get up early – before ten – tomorrow to do some hardcore family reunion bullshit, if you need me to sing you to sleep, I got your back…”  
  
It took Brad maybe another three minutes to fall asleep to the sound of Ray babbling about shit, his voice snaking into his head until he was dreaming about being back in Iraq, except this time it was just the two of them and Brad was holding a phone instead of a gun, and instead of staring out the window he couldn’t stop staring at Ray’s mouth.  
  
He woke up six hours later to the sound of his phone beeping tiredly at him and the sun shining directly through his skull, like his head was made of glass. He groaned and sat up, rubbing at his eyes. His phone told him he had six new voice mails. He pressed some buttons, and listened to Ray bitch him out in each one. By the end, his headache was still there, but the sun was a little easier to deal with.  
  
He tossed his phone onto the couch and went to go get his board. It looked like a good morning for a surf.  
  
~  
  
That afternoon, Nate dropped by.   
  
Brad had just come in from the waves, still all salty and sandy, and Nate laughed at him for tracking half the beach into his house.  
  
“I always thought you were the anal retentive type, Brad,” he said, standing in the doorway, watching Brad half-heartedly try and swipe the sand around with his feet. “Good to know you’re human after all.”  
  
“Like you’d know, LT,” Brad said, ushering him through to the back porch. The bottle of whiskey from the night before was still sitting on the step, and Nate raised an eyebrow. Brad just shrugged.   
  
“You want a drink?”  
  
“You got anything that isn’t forty proof?”   
  
Brad grinned. “I’ve got coffee brewing. Rudy gave me this yuppie Blue Mountain blend, told me if he ever caught me drinking anything else he’d put me in a sleeper hold. You want?”  
  
Nate smiled back, the smile that kind of broke Brad’s heart, the one that made him want to tear down the world and build it better, build it to Nate’s requirements. “Sounds good.”  
  
The conversation with Nate went pretty much like Brad expected it to. They reminisced about Iraq, mostly, bitched about their superiors, Brad got to talking about surfing, which made Nate talk about running. It was easy, light, but there was an edge underneath that told Brad that it was going to twist, soon. Marines, in Brad’s experience, didn’t do easy.  
  
“At one point I thought Ray was going to drive us all insane, and then I realised that without him we would have been a lot fucking worse,” Nate was saying, and Brad glanced at him.  
  
“That’s probably true,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d picked up on it, though.”  
  
Nate smiled dryly. “I was there, Brad. I was in it. I saw how he was with Walt, especially. He fixed him better than you could have. A _lot_ better than I could have.”  
  
Brad’s coffee was cold. He dipped a finger into it and tried to squeak it around the cup, but it was the wrong kind of china – or was it crystal that did that? He didn’t know what to say.  
  
“Sir, without you there we would have all been fucking dead. That’s just facts.”  
  
Nate nodded, and Brad realised he looked tired, worn down, like Iraq hadn’t been entirely rubbed off his skin.  
  
“I think I’m leaving the Marines,” he said, and Brad had to look away real quick, because he didn’t want to see what Nate’s face looked like when he said that.  
  
“Sir?”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nate shake his head in frustration. “Call me Nate, Brad. I don’t want to be sir. I don’t want-” He cut himself off and sighed. Brad steeled himself and turned back to him.   
  
“Nate. I don’t know…”  
  
“It’s ok,” Nate said, and visibly tried to pull himself together. “My girlfriend flew out to meet me at my place. She sat on the front steps and waited for me for hours because I was late getting home. Didn’t have a phone.” He smiled, and his face softened, thinking about her. “I got there and saw her, and thought, I’ve killed a lot of people I don’t care about, and I almost got a lot of people I _do_ care about killed, and why the hell would I want to do that? I don’t want to be the kind of person who kills people any more. I don’t want my girlfriend to look at me and see a murderer.”  
  
“She better be perfect,” Brad said without thinking. Nate looked at him in surprise, and Brad shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, Nate, you’re the best officer I’ve ever had. Anyone that takes you away from us better be damn worth it.”  
  
Nate’s cheeks went pink, and Brad had to smile a little to see it. “I’m honoured, Brad. But it’s not really her that’s doing it; it was just her that made me wake up.” He leaned back in his seat and looked at Brad frankly. “I don’t want to look in the mirror and see a murderer. Next time in theatre I might issue an order that gets one of my men dead. That keeps me up at night. I can justify it away all I want, but the thought of coming home without one of you, the thought of my girlfriend looking at someone who can’t keep his men safe – yeah, I think it’s time to get out.”  
  
Brad wanted to go dive back into the ocean, swim out as far as he could and just let himself tumble in the waves. He didn’t know how to cope with a Nate who was less than perfect, he felt like the ground had shifted beneath him. He didn’t put people up on pedestals, he was too smart for that, but Nate had come with his pedestal pre-equipped.   
  
“We’ll miss you, LT,” he said, and it sounded weird and stilted to his own ears. He didn’t have the right words, didn’t know if they even existed. He coughed and frowned and looked out to sea.   
  
Nate set his empty cup down on the porch with a soft clink, and gave Brad an unreadable look. “Oh yeah, and they just promoted me. It’s Captain now.”  
  
~  
  
The next day Brad was snoozing on his couch with the TV turned up loud when he got a call from Ray. He almost dropped his phone as he fumbled it out of his pocket, the ring tone going through his head like a laser, like something calling him to wake up properly and rejoin the world.   
  
And then Ray. “Oh, Brad, is that you? I was trying to call your mom for a booty call – must have pressed the wrong button. If she’s there, can you tell her to bring the edible panties?”  
  
“Hello, Ray,” Brad said, a grin curling his mouth without his permission. He pointed his remote at the TV and hit mute, watched Dr. Cox’s mouth keep moving in the sudden silence. “My mom’s not here right now, but if I can get your grandma’s mouth off my nuts for a couple of seconds I’m sure she’d like to say ‘hi.’”  
  
Ray laughed in delight, and Brad could hear him crashing around, doing something noisy. “Good to see you back on form, Bradley. How was the hangover?”  
  
Brad thought about lying, but Ray knew him too well for that. “Epic,” he admitted. “And then Nate came round and saw me all fucked up. I almost had to commit hari-kari.”  
  
“Mmm,” Ray said, and Brad listened to him microwaving something, slamming the door and punching buttons. “So tell me. Were you serious about having me out to visit, or was it just the liquor talking?”  
  
If Brad lied with his head on one arm of the love seat, he could hook his knees over the other and almost touch the floor. He did this now and stared at the ceiling.  
  
“Poke’s having a BBQ,” he said, for some stupid reason, “You could come out for that and stay until your leave’s up. Get some fucking culture.”  
  
Ray snorted, and Brad counted cracks and water stains and marks on the ceiling.   
  
“Brad, are you seriously suggesting I come out to that liberal hippy cesspool of a city to drown in the scent of patchouli and unshaved armpits in the name of _culture_? The fuckin’ second-hand dope smoke really is getting to you, homes.”  
  
“We got more culture than that little backwards hick hole-in-the-road town you call home, Ray – unless you count three dollar strip shows and cockfighting culture. Which maybe you NASCAR-loving freaks do. I don’t know.”  
  
“Shut up, Brad.” Ray’s voice was easy, light, and Brad felt something in himself lighten in response.   
  
“That’s my line,” he said. “So, you coming?”  
  
There was a pause. Brad heard his microwave beep, but not the sound of Ray taking whatever was in it out.  
  
“Brad,” Ray said, and the lightness was gone, quick as it came. “Brad, I’m gonna talk atcha for a second here.”  
  
Brad frowned, trying to remember if Ray had ever given him warning before. “Ok…”  
  
Ray took a deep breath. “Yeah. Being home is not what I expected.” There was the scrape of a stool across a linoleum floor, Ray sitting down. “Walt’s off home with his girl, and I feel like I’m stuck here by myself, you know? And my mom’s been talking to me like I got back from Iraq with irreversible brain damage. She keeps wanting to feed me soup for whatever fucking reason.”   
  
The sound of his laughter was bitter, and Brad railed against anything that could make Ray sound that defeated.   
  
“Then she invited my aunt and cousins over for dinner and it was a goddamn torture session,” Ray continued. “I got a ten-year-old cousin, and all he wants to know is what it’s like to shoot someone, what it’s like to kill. I feel like I’m raising another little Trombley.”  
  
“Jesus,” Brad said, and pointed his toes, trying to brush the carpet.  
  
“Yeah. And fuckin’…” another pause, like Ray was actually struggling to find his words. Brad’s calves were tensing up as he struggled to touch the floor.  
  
“This is a small town – you got that right. I walk down the street and run into sixteen people from high school, half of ‘em pretend not to see me. The other half wants to hug me, shake my hand like I’m a damned superhero. How fucked up’s that?”  
  
“You need to come out here,” Brad said explicitly. His mouth was kind of dry. “No one here knows who the fuck you are.”  
  
“You know who I am,” Ray pointed out. Brad closed his eyes. He could just feel the fibres of the carpet against his bare toes.  
  
“Yeah, I’m the only one who does,” he said. “There’s that.”  
  
Silence.  
  
And then, “Fuck it, I’m coming. Put the pinkos on notice – Ray-Ray’s on his way.”  
  
Brad let himself relax, finally. Dr. Cox was yelling at someone else on the TV, and all of Brad’s muscles loosened up. He let his feet swing gently back and forth as he and Ray discussed flight times and BBQ food and cab drivers and whatever else Ray wanted.  
  
It was more of a relief than Brad was ready to admit.  
  
~  
  
Ray was coming out in two days and Brad was standing in a supermarket feeling like a recon alien set down on a new planet. He knew about this cliché, the returning vet who freaked out in the supermarket, overwhelmed by the variety of choice when for months he’d had all choice stripped from him. He hadn’t expected to be living it. He couldn’t decide if it was more or less pathetic than getting trashed and drunk dialing Ray, more or less pathetic than how bad he missed his RTO, more or less pathetic than sitting at home with three recipe books planning out stuff to cook for Ray’s visit. It was definitely up there.  
  
He was fine in the cereal aisle, at least, Ray had given him pretty strict instructions in that regard. The Cocoa Puffs had gone in his cart first thing; it was everything else that was fucking baffling.  
  
He was standing in the toiletries aisle sniffing at different shower gels when Tony called.  
  
“What is that weak-ass white bread music you are listening to, dawg?”  
  
Brad grinned into the phone, smelling something in a red bottle called Pomegranate Passion.   
  
“I’m at a supermarket, Poke. White people like to go to places like this to buy food and supplies. You’ll find out all about it when your people finally evolve from a fucking trading culture.”  
  
Tony laughed and Brad put something called Orange Blossom and Vanilla Bean Shower Cream into his cart. He could hear delighted shrieking in the background, Tony’s daughter, Daniela.   
  
“You’re lucky I got my little girl here, Colbert, or you would be getting one hell of a schooling – no, honey, honey-”  
  
 _“Daddy said ‘hell!’ Mommy, Daddy said ‘HELL’!’”_  
  
Brad wandered up to the fresh produce section as Poke tried to calm down his kid, then his wife. “Having fun?” he asked, contemplating an avocado.  
  
“…I’ma call you back.”  
  
Brad smirked and put the avocado in his basket. By the time Ray got in, it’d be ripe enough for guacamole.   
  
Poke called back that afternoon as Brad settled down onto the back porch with a bottle of beer and the sun in his eyes.   
  
“You know, dawg,” he said, sounding a lot more relaxed than he had that morning. “I think I’ve found the secret to happiness.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Brad took a swig of beer and set it down carefully on the step, cradling the phone against his shoulder. “What’s that?”  
  
“When I got home, my wife could hardly look at me at first, you know? I know I looked all kinds of fucked up, I didn’t even blame her. And my brother, man, he almost started crying. But my little girl, Brad.” Tony paused. “My little girl ran right up to me with her arms out yelling ‘Daddy, Daddy.’ I picked her up and held her and thought, ‘fuck everything else’, you know? Fuck everything except this right here.”  
  
Brad stared at the bright green grass, the bright blue sky. Everything seemed over saturated, like he was living in a TV show. “Yeah, well, that’s you, Tony. I don’t think I’m going to have any little people running up to me calling me ‘daddy’ any time soon.”  
  
Tony chuckled. “I don’t know about that, Brad. You got Person coming round, don’t you?”  
  
~  
  
Ray called one more time before he arrived – about an hour before he was due to get on his plane. Brad stared at his phone blankly as it rang. He felt like he’d had it surgically attached to his ear, like it was his only lifeline to the outside world. He kind of wanted to throw it into the ocean.  
  
After Ray got there safely.  
  
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the airport?” he asked, ignoring the annoying knot of tension that was suddenly in his gut. He was watering his plants, but he was pretty sure they were all dead.  
  
“I _am_ , settle down,” Ray said, his voice fuzzy, and Brad let himself hear the background noises, then. It was obvious he was at an airport.   
  
“So why’re you calling? You want me to pick you up at LAX after all?”  
  
“Fuck no.” Brad’s car was in the shop, and Ray had freely admitted he was too much of a pussy to get on the back of Brad’s bike. Brad had told him he was heartbroken, and he was mostly joking. “I just spoke to Walt.”  
  
“How is he?” Brad hesitated with his watering can over a little cactus. He couldn’t remember if it even needed water, or if it did better without.  
  
“He’s fucking fantastic, homes. He’s getting _married_.” Ray sounded agitated, for whatever reason. Brad sprinkled water over an African Violet his mother had brought round. All the flowers on it had immediately wilted, and it was now just a sad bundle of sticks and brownish leaves.   
  
“That’s wonderful news, if he’s happy being broke for the rest of his life. Why do you sound like he’s got a terminal illness?”  
  
“Because he wants me to be the best man, Brad!”  
  
Brad paused, then grinned. “You serious?”  
  
“Yes I’m fucking serious! Look, we all know I’m fucking awesome, but if you looked at our platoon and thought ‘best man’ would _you_ come up with me?”  
  
Privately, Brad probably would. Out loud he said, “Best goat-fucker, maybe. Best Hick in Show for sure-”  
  
“Oh, shut up,” Ray sighed. “Best man. Fuck.”  
  
“Why’s he getting married anyway? He’s like, twelve.”  
  
Ray tsked. “He said something about getting home and not being able to forget about the guy he shot, you know, at the roadblock?”  
  
Brad knew. He bypassed the next cactus and half-heartedly sprinkled a few drops of water over a hanging fern – gift from his sister.  
  
“And then he says he saw her and forgot after all, just for a second. And right then and there he dropped to his knees like a fucking pussy and proposed. Didn’t even have a ring, he gave her his damned dog tags.” Ray sounded morose, like the fact that such fuckery even existed in the world was making him depressed.   
  
“Well that’s just adorable,” Brad said. “Did he say why, in his infinite wisdom, he was making you in charge of this whole mess?”  
  
Silence. Through the phone Brad could hear people yelling, announcements flying through the air. He waited.  
  
“He said it was because I made him forget, too.” Ray finally said, and his voice sounded a little wrecked. “I was the first one who made him forget.”  
  
Brad’s stomach felt tight again, the sun was hurting his eyes. He wanted to see Ray in front of him, see that he was whole and good and real.  
  
“You’re a good person, Ray,” he said hesitantly, balancing his can on the railing of the porch. “You’ll do fine-”  
  
“Don’t be a pansy, Iceman,” Ray cut in, and Brad could hear the smile back in his voice. “Cali breeds ‘em soft, huh? Lookit – I gotta go. I’ll see you in a hot minute, ok?”  
  
“I’ll fucking show you soft,” Brad said, but Ray was already gone. Brad hung up, but as he turned to go inside, something caught his eye.  
  
There were a few buds growing on the violet, small and sickly looking, but definitely there. He wasn’t such a black thumb after all.  
  
Brad smiled, and went inside to make up the spare bed.  
  
~  
  
Brad had two steaks the size of his head laid out and ready to go and two six packs stuffed into his freezer when he heard a knock at the door. His heart jolted, and he smirked at his reflection in the kitchen window. Laughing at himself to play down the anticipation. It didn’t really work.  
  
Ray was standing on his front porch with his dufflebag at his feet and a cigarette wedged into his mouth. He looked pale and scrawny, like his muscles were plastered right onto his bones with no padding. He was shiny with sweat from the humidity. His wifebeater was sticking to his chest, his hair was growing out already, and also, he needed a shave.  
  
Brad just looked. He didn’t know what to say, but everything he’d been dreading, everything he’d been ignoring, everything he’d been putting down to loneliness and combat stress and PTSD was coming out of hiding and performing parade maneuvers in his stomach.   
  
He was fucked.  
  
“You’re not smoking in my house,” he finally said, voice low.  
  
Ray pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and gave Brad a pained look. “That’s all you got? Where’s my hug, bitch?”  
  
Brad reached out and plucked the cigarette from Ray’s mouth, tossing it over the railing. Ray let him, a little smile on his face, then stepped in and gave Brad a quick, one armed hug. Brad stopped breathing for an instant, and then inhaled deep, skin burning everywhere Ray was touching him.  
  
“I got steaks and beer,” he said, letting Ray go and stepping aside. “You need a shower. You smell like my ball sweat.”  
  
Ray hoisted up his bag and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I missed you too, Iceman.” He pushed his way inside and grinned over his shoulder. “Get those steaks cooking, woman. I’m hungry as a motherfucker!”  
  
Brad couldn’t stop himself from grinning back as he shoved Ray ahead of him and listened to him filling up the house with noise and life and words.   
  
It felt like his heart was beating for the first time since he’d been home.


	2. Honesty

_When the night starts fading and the mornin' arrives  
I wanna still feel you around   
Will you creep into my head again and pick me up off the ground_  
  
Drinking For 11, The Mad Caddies  
  
  
Brad could cook the fuck out of a steak.  
  
He had dinner on by the time Ray got out of the shower and handed over a beer as soon as he stepped into the kitchen. He smelled like orange blossom and vanilla, like Brad’s new shower gel. Brad had to turn away and poke at the steaks for a bit before he could deal with that.  
  
And that made him have to deal with it.  
  
He got through dinner fine, great even. It was easy, natural as breathing to have Ray at his table, munching away at his food, drinking his beer. Without Ripped Fuel Ray wasn’t nearly as hyperactive, but he still had a lot to say and between gulps he filled the table with words that Brad kind of wanted to bottle and store up, to take out again when he was alone.  
  
Another thing he had to deal with.  
  
“So what’s with you?” Ray eventually asked after they’d eaten, as he magnanimously loaded the dishwasher.  
  
“I’m all good,” Brad said, leaning back in his chair “Regretting my decision to invite your hillbilly ass around to mess with my quiet, but I’m making peace with it.”  
  
Ray grinned at him, scraping his plate. “You fuckin’ missed me. Don’t even front, Brad. You think you’re happy to see the back of me, sure, but as soon as I’m gone you come out in hives.” He nodded sagely. “It’s all on account of how awesome I am. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”  
  
Brad rolled his eyes. “Gee, Ray, you got me. I’ve just spent the last few weeks moping around the house wishing you were here to complete me. You’re so right.” He got up and started tying up the trash, fussing around, trying to cover up the most honest thing he’d said all night.   
  
Ray just smirked at him. “Yeah, I just have that effect on people. Fuckin’ awesome.”  
  
~  
  
Brad was a little surprised by how easy a houseguest Ray was, at how well they got on when there weren’t bullets flying towards them at all hours, when they weren’t trapped together in a humvee for days on end. If it wasn’t for that thing inside Brad – that intrusive, unwelcome gush of feelings that flooded him at odd moments when he looked at Ray – it would have been perfect.  
  
Ray liked to read, stretched out on Brad’s couch or on the swing on his back porch or down on the beach or sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. Half of his luggage had been books, a miniature library that Brad couldn’t help but study, trying to get a read on a side of Ray he was only just realising he didn’t know. Henry Rollins and Mark Z. Danielewski battled for space with Henry James and a random collection of old Penguin classics tumbled out on the dresser of the spare room. Brad sifted through them, read the notes scribbled in the margins, and aligned this new Ray with the Ray that had sat beside him for hours on end ranting about pussy and colour perception and being high all of the time. The pictures were a perfect match; it was Brad who didn’t line up.  
  
He had to be honest. He wasn’t even lining up with his perception of himself any more.  
  
Brad had been in love, with a girl who had broken his heart and left him for dead, but it was love. He knew what love was. And he knew the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. He loved Nate. He loved Tony. He loved Walt.   
  
Ray was the wildcard.  
  
He didn’t think he was in love with Ray. Those words sounded wrong and strange to him. They belonged to something he didn’t identify with, something he couldn’t hold in his thoughts without it slipping away. But he knew that he loved Walt, and yet didn’t want to spend all his time with Walt, didn’t want to look at Walt drinking his coffee, smell Walt fresh from his shower, listen to Walt sleepily rant about _Washington Square_ and why all the characters in it deserved each other at _best_. He knew he loved Nate, but Nate didn’t make him feel fierce and undone and lost at sea and off-balance, like he was trying to walk across a grumbling earthquake. He knew he loved Tony, but had never wanted to trace his fingers along Tony’s tattoos or press his thumbs into the bones of his wrists.  
  
He’d catch himself staring, listening quietly as Ray chattered away about whatever he was reading, watching, doing. It was peaceful, it was good. Cooking potato salad with Ray for Tony’s BBQ was good. Sitting on the beach with a cooler of beer and the football on the radio was good.   
  
If he lied to himself and pushed everything else away, it was good.   
  
He wanted to believe, though, that maybe when he _stopped_ lying to himself it could be good, too.  
  
~  
  
“Have you read Homer?”  
  
Brad looked up at what Ray was reading, an old, battered copy of _The Iliad_. Ray had taken up residence on the love seat, and Brad was on the floor with his laptop, leaning against the love seat with his legs stretched out before him.  
  
“Yeah,” he said. _“The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_.” He snatched the book from Ray’s hands and flicked through it. It was one of those editions with the English translation down the right page and the original Ancient Greek down the left. Both sides of almost every page were covered in scrawling notes. Brad looked at Ray in amazement.  
  
“Please don’t tell me you speak Ancient Greek,” he said. He remembered every time he’d called Ray an uncultured hick and cringed. Although he was sticking by anything he’d ever said about NASCAR.  
  
Ray grinned. “Why? You want me to lie to you?” He took the book back and shrugged. “But no, I’m not completely fluent. I mean, I’m probably fluent in _The Iliad_ by now, but gimme some Aeschylus and I’d spend all day translating.”  
  
“Oh, of course,” Brad said, rolling his eyes. “Where’ve you been hiding this?”  
  
“Who’s hiding?” Ray asked. “I was on the debate team, Brad. I’ve been an accredited nerd since high school.”  
  
Brad didn’t know what to say. He’d spent three minutes of his life reading all the Greek masters and a few books on classical culture and considered himself an expert. And here was fucking Ray speaking the damned language like some skinny, demented Indiana Jones.  
  
“You and the LT would have a lot to talk about,” he said, letting his eyes slide towards the window.   
  
Ray laughed. “Brad, _Captain_ Nate thinks all I do is sing Avril Lavigne and watch WWE. I don’t think he wants to discuss the _Fall of Troy_ with me over lattes.”  
  
Brad frowned. “Ray, you’re a fucking genius, I’ll give you that, but what have you got against Nate?”  
  
Ray looked shocked. “I’ve got nothing against Nate! I love Nate.” Brad looked at him, and Ray nodded. “I do, in a totally non-gay way, I love Nate. We all love Nate. But he’s, you know… Nate’s not like the rest of us. Nate’s one of these guys I’m reading about.”  
  
“You think Nate’s better than you?” Brad’s frown deepened, like it was etching itself into his face.   
  
Ray snorted. “Duh, Brad. But it’s not that, he’s just – I’m a grunt, not a hero. Nate’s different. Nate’s Nate.” He paused. “Same way you’re you.”  
  
Brad flinched like Ray’d drawn a weapon on him. “No I’m not,” he protested. “I’m one of you. I’m the same as you.”  
  
“That’s bullshit, Brad. You’re in a different class. You’re the Iceman, you’re our leader.” Ray waved the book. “You and Nate are like Achilles and Patrokles. I’m just, you know, Random Heroic Greek who gets killed on page twelve.”  
  
Brad felt like his stomach was trying to drop through the floor. “You’re so fucking stupid sometimes,” he said. “I take back everything I ever said about you being a genius. You’re a moron.”  
  
“Yeah, OK.” Ray stretched out on the couch and flicked through his book, trying to find his place. Brad watched him, watched bravado and bullshit and insecurity and brilliance etched all over him like his tattoos.   
  
“Weren’t Achilles and Patrokles fucking?” he eventually asked, for something to say.  
  
Ray looked up and nodded. “Probably. Something you wanna tell me, Bradley?”  
  
Yes, Brad thought, I kind of imagined you were my Patrokles. “No,” he said. “Nate and I are not fucking.”  
  
Ray smiled. “Well, good to know.”  
  
~  
  
The morning of Poke’s BBQ, like most mornings since Ray had been there, was spent down on the beach, Ray with the paper and a thermos of coffee, Brad with his board, surfing until he collapsed on the sand, exhausted and content with Ray beside him. He was dozing in the warm morning sun, drifting off to the sound of the waves and Ray’s paper rustling, when Ray let out an annoyed sigh.  
  
“Man, _fuck_ DADT.”  
  
Brad opened his eyes and squinted against the bright sky. “What?”  
  
Ray slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “Fuck DADT. It is such a load of _bullshit_.”   
  
“Elaborate,” Brad demanded, holding his hand in front of his eyes and trying to adjust to the brightness around him. “Speak English, not hillbilly.”  
  
“Well think about it. Imagine if they got rid of that crap, motherfuckers would be getting laid all over the place, _reducing_ the amount of blue-balls and nervous tension, and it’d be a much fucking happier and combat effective Marine Corps. Pity the fucking retards who run this country are too goddamn stupid to see it that way. When are they fucking going to put me in charge already, Brad, that’s what I’d like to know.”  
  
Brad sat up and looked at him in amazement, making a small landslide out of the sand and shells Ray had apparently piled on his chest while he was sleeping. “Are you serious?”  
  
“Fuck yeah I’m serious! Just think if you could walk up to someone and say ‘homes, I’m fucking horny, wanna suck my dick?’ without having to do all the fucked up _dancing around the issue_ shit we all do like a bunch of repressed Catholic schoolgirls. Make everyone’s life a hell of a lot easier.”  
  
Brad couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, wasn’t sure if Ray was just spouting crap for the hell of it, like he always did, or if he was trying to get at something else, something real. “Who the fuck was dancing around the issue in my humvee?” he asked, and scowled. “Were you and Walt dancing around any issues in my humvee, Ray?”  
  
Ray laughed, shaking his head. “Walt? I’ve never met anyone straighter than that corn-fed hick in my life. Do you even realise the amount of pussy that pretty boy gets? I mean, before he decided to throw it all away and get married. It was _extreme_.”  
  
Brad’s mouth had gone dry, there was a roaring in his ears like the ocean had invaded his head, sending all his thoughts spinning and tossing in the waves.   
  
“So Walt’s the straight one,” he said through the din. “What does that make you?”  
  
Ray grinned big, waggled his eyebrows over his sunglasses. “Brad, I’m a rock star _and_ a Marine. I will fuck _anything_.” He rolled onto his back, stretched out in the sun. He’d tanned up quickly, and beads of sweat were pooling on his brown skin, over his chest and stomach, dripping down his side. “But I’m not fucking telling.”  
  
“Ray.” Brad didn’t know what to say. He thought, _I knew, I had to,_ and, _how could I have known him for so long without realising,_ and _why does this feel like he’s just hit me with a fucking hammer?_ and, _fuck, oh fuck does this mean_ – No.  
  
He blinked, rubbed his forehead, tried to formulate words. “Ray, you uh, you know that I-”  
  
“Yeah, shut up, Brad,” Ray said comfortably. “I don’t wanna have a big homo talk about feelings. I know you’re totally gay for all that shit, but I couldn’t be less interested. You wanna be useful and caring? Go get me more coffee.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Brad said automatically and stood up, brushing sand off himself and onto Ray’s face. “Get the fuck up, you indolent little nancy-boy, we need to get over to Poke’s and help him set up.”  
  
Ray swatted at Brad’s legs ineffectually, trying to wave him off. “You motherfuckers are putting me to work? Brad, I am a _guest_.”  
  
“No, you are a punishment.” Brad gathered up their towels, feeling like he was moving through water, and concentrated on keeping his voice normal, level, sane. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna go have a nice, long, hot shower and you, my little libertine friend, are going to pack up the potato salad and beer in the cooler and have it by the front door waiting for me when I get out. Copy?”  
  
“Oh is that what’s happening, Brad?” Ray said casually as he followed Brad back up to the house. “Because what this Marine thought was happening is that I was gonna _jerk off_ in your fucking potato salad. How do you like that?”  
  
Brad raised an eyebrow. “Men, women, potato salad? I think that counts as telling, you filthy fucking degenerate.”  
  
“I love our little chats, Brad. I feel like we’re really bonding, here.” Ray brushed the sand off his feet before entering the house, had scowled at Brad the first time he saw he didn’t – _My momma would tan your ass / yeah I hear she’s nice and kinky like that_ – and stomped off towards his room. “Are we _bonding_ , Brad? _Bradley_?”  
  
Brad didn’t bother answering, just walked straight into the shower, turning it on as hot as he could stand.  
  
Ray fucked men.  
  
Or at least – wait, had he actually _said_ that? _I’m a rock star, Brad_. What the fuck did that even mean? _I will fuck anything._  
  
“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, and noticed to his absolute dismay that he was hard. And he was about to cross a line.  
  
He could love Ray, he loved all his Marines. He could be in love with the idea of Ray, he was stressed and lonely and just back from a war. He could be struck dumb by the sight of Ray – OK, getting a little gay.  
  
But jerking off to the thought of Ray…  
  
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the cool tiles of the shower, hoping the contrast would help snap him out of whatever insanity he was sinking into. It didn’t. All he could think about was that one drop of sweat that had rolled down Ray’s side. All he could hear was _I will fuck anything._  
  
 _I will fuck you, Brad.  
  
I will let you fuck me.  
  
I will let you shut me up.  
  
I will, I will, I will…_  
  
“Fuck, fuck,” he whispered, and grabbed his cock, jerking off like he was punishing himself, too hard, too rough, and that drop of _fucking_ sweat was still sliding down Ray’s brown skin. Brad pumped his cock and thought about licking it up, following the trail of it over Ray’s abs, up his chest, and then Ray was looking at him and licking his lips and saying it, _I will fuck anything_ , and…  
  
He came with Ray’s name on his lips, silent, lost in the steady stream of the shower, with his face lifted to the water and his whole body shaking, his cock sore and hot. He came thinking about his best friend, and it was the best orgasm he’d had in weeks.  
  
“I am,” he whispered into the water, “so fucked.”  
  
~  
  
All the women at Tony’s BBQ loved Ray on sight.  
  
Brad stood with Tony, Nate and Rudy, watching in amazement as they flocked to him, bringing him food and drinks, squawking over how skinny he was, wanting to know if Brad was feeding him properly. Even little Daniela got in on the act, following him around with big eyes until he bent down and picked her up, settling her on his shoulders with his giant glasses perched on her tiny nose.  
  
“Hot damn, Poke,” Brad said, watching Tony’s wife run to get the camera. “Ray is straight up stealing all your women.”  
  
“Wouldn’t be the first time the white man’s come onto my land and stolen my people’s women and children,” Tony said darkly. Nate smirked, reaching into the cooler for more beer.   
  
“First time the shining example of white superiority looked like Ray Person, though,” he said. Brad frowned to himself, and immediately felt like a little bitch for feeling offended on Ray’s behalf.  
  
Poke raised an eyebrow. “Hey, _Captain_ , isn’t that your girl giving him your number?”  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
They all watched as Alice, Nate’s girlfriend, tapped away at Ray’s phone before handing it back with a warm smile. Ray looked kind of smug, like, he would never actually snake someone’s girl, but he liked people thinking he _could_.  
  
“I don’t get it,” Nate sighed. “I seriously don’t.”  
  
Brad did. He understood completely, and it suddenly pissed him off that no one else did, that no one else bothered to look.  
  
“Ray’s alright,” he said absently. “Get him away from Ripped Fuel and other Marines and he – did you know he can read Ancient Greek?”  
  
He looked around at the others. Nate looked surprised and interested, Tony was laughing at him, Rudy just gave him a knowing look.  
  
“If anyone’s gonna see the best in Ray, brother, it’ll be you,” he said approvingly, and Tony snorted.  
  
“Brad’s got a man-crush is what’s going on here.”  
  
Brad willed himself not to go red, willed himself not to think back to the shower.  
  
“Only because you won’t put out, you giant fucking cocktease,” he shot back, just as Ray walked up, still sans sunglasses.  
  
“Who’s a cocktease? You bastards hitting on my man?” He made to put his arms around Brad’s waist, cackling as Brad shoved him off.  
  
“You done sowing your vile seed all over my backyard, Person?” Tony asked, handing over a beer.  
  
Ray looked wounded. “As if I could ever be unfaithful to my sugar-daddy here,” he said, nodding at Brad. “Sorry, Poke, but none of your ladies can give me what I need like the Iceman can.”  
  
“Ray, shut up,” Brad muttered, too mortified to join in on the usual banter. Tony was crowing, but Rudy gave Ray a little smile.   
  
“Aww, you too, brother? That’s a beautiful thing.”  
  
Ray looked at them quizzically, and Tony elaborated. “Brad’s got a big gay crush on you,” he said, and Brad sighed and stalked off in search of the tequila. Behind him he heard a lot of evil laughter, and in the midst of it all, Nate’s voice – “Ray, _why_ do you know Ancient Greek?”  
  
  
Brad was sitting alone on the back step twenty minutes later when Rudy dropped down beside him and knocked their shoulders together.  
  
“You all good, my man?”  
  
“I’m good, Rudy,” Brad said, and picked at a fraying hole in his jeans. “It’s all good.”  
  
Rudy nodded, gazing out over the backyard. Ray and Nate were involved in some sort of complex discussion about Greek verbs while Daniela climbed up and down them like they were a set of monkey-bars. Every now and then Ray interrupted his conversation to reach down and tickle her, making her shriek in delight, almost exploding with excitement.  
  
Rudy chuckled. “Children often see things us adults miss,” he said musingly. “Daniela knows Ray’s good people.”  
  
“I know Ray’s good people,” Brad said. “He’s got – there’s more to him than everyone gives him credit for.”  
  
Rudy smiled. “This is what I love about being out of the AO, Brad,” he said. He was wearing a pink polo-shirt with the collar popped, and he managed to make it _stylish_. Brad watched him steadily, preparing himself for a load of Rudy-Zen wisdom. God knows he could fucking use it.  
  
“Oh yeah?”  
  
“We don’t have to be so macho all the time. We’ve proven ourselves, we’re superheroes, we’re warriors, but like all heroes, we’re people first. It’s good to get back and be human, you know?”  
  
Brad smiled a little, to himself. “Yeah, right now I’m feeling _too_ human, Rude,” he said, the tequila battering down his guard, just a little.  
  
Rudy patted his back. “That’s a _good_ thing, brother. Melt that Iceman down until the next time you need him. Do what you have to _now_ to warm back up.”  
  
“It’s never that easy.”  
  
Rudy looked him in the eye. It was like being gazed at by a beautiful, benevolent god. “Why not, Brad?” he asked reasonably. “You know, whenever I think something’s too hard, I break it down into little bricks, and I figure out what I need to do to smash each one of those bricks to smithereens. It normally turns out that what I thought was a giant wall wasn’t so tough to defeat after all.”  
  
Brad had to laugh, shaking his head. “You’re like a fucking walking motivational poster, Rudy. I should keep you tacked up in my locker.”  
  
Rudy’s grin was like a ray of sunlight. Brad thought it would have made a lot more sense to fall in love with _him_ – beautiful, open, carefree Rudy. But that would have been a total gay cop-out. _Everyone_ was in love with Rudy.  
  
“I’m just here to help, Brad,” he said, and got to his feet. “Whatever’s getting you down, show it your teeth.”  
  
“Yeah?” For half a second, Brad wanted to believe that it could be that easy. With Rudy looking at him, pink shirt and all, he thought it might be.  
  
“Oo-rah, brother.”  
  
“Ooh-rah.” They bumped fists, and with one more grin, Rudy was off, ready to sprinkle his fairy dust over some other corner of the yard. Brad watched him go, sipping at his drink, trying not to think too hard about what he’d said. There were some problems that couldn’t be solved by a cheery fucking motto and some positive thinking.   
  
And his was coming up on his eleven right now.  
  
“Hey, Brad, the rug rat’s been put to bed. Time for the heavy drinking to start!” Ray looked down at him, noted the bottle of tequila. “So I guess you’re getting in early, huh? That’s cool. There’s more of you to marinate.”  
  
The sun was setting right behind Ray. Brad couldn’t look at him without being a little blinded. He held out the tequila. “Sit the fuck down, Person.”  
  
Ray did, taking up a lot less space than Rudy had, looking small and hard and scrawny next to Brad. He took the bottle and poured out two shots, handing one back to Brad.  
  
“Cheers,” he said, and smiled sideways at Brad before throwing it back. “You know what I think? I think we need to get fucking drunk.”  
  
Brad tossed back his own shot, concentrated on the burn as it slid into his system.  
  
“Oh really?”  
  
Ray nodded, and they stared out over the backyard, at the clusters of happy couples, Nate and his girl, the way he looked at her proving more than anything else that he was right to leave the Marines. Tony with his wife on his lap, reveling in being a family man with a barbecue and a baby girl. Rudy deep in conversation with Sheree, his soul-mate or some shit, something perfect and wholesome. They were realising that they were practically the only two singles left, and they were stuck with each other. Ray sighed.  
  
“Yeah. It seems like that kind of night.”  
  
Brad nodded slowly. “Ray,” he said, already pouring out another shot, “When you’re right, you’re right.”  
  
~  
  
They kept drinking when they got home from the BBQ later that night after waving goodbye to the last, straggling guests and piling into a cab. Ray had snaked the tequila, and they just kept tossing shots back, sitting together on the couch with MTV on mute, talking shit, free and easy, like it should be. Brad felt loose-limbed and too big for his own body, like whatever was inside him was expanding to fill up the whole room, the whole house, everywhere that Ray had touched.  
  
And fuck, Ray wasn’t helping, drunk and open, invading Brad’s personal space, making his presence felt, as always, with his mouth and his body, loud and grabby.  
  
And there were times… Maybe Brad was crazy – _definitely_ he was crazy – but there were times, yeah, where he caught Ray looking at him, when he thought Brad wouldn’t notice, just…watching him. It kind of made his mouth go dry. He kind of hated himself for even thinking of it.  
  
He didn’t know if it was because Ray was drunk or because Brad was, but he was sure of one thing – something seemed different. Something between them seemed brighter, more intense. He felt like they were on the edge of something huge, and one or two more steps would send them hurtling into…  
  
“Oh my god, Iceman, if you’re gonna kiss me stop staring at me like a fuckin’ psycho and just fuckin’ do it.”  
  
Brad blinked, Ray’s voice abruptly startling him out of his own head. “ _What_?”  
  
Ray rolled his eyes and took a drink – they’d given up on glasses by now and were just passing the bottle back and forth. “Jesus Christ, I’ve never seen you this drunk,” he said, smiling around the mouth of the bottle. “I was _joking_ , Brad.”  
  
Brad took the bottle from him and set it down on the floor, twisting on the seat so he was facing Ray. He was at that level of smashed where he could think clearly, or thought he could, but the entire world was moving just a beat out of time. He watched Ray swim into focus, concentrated on his smile. He thought he could do this. Probably.  
  
“Were you?”  
  
Ray cocked his head. “Was I what?”  
  
Brad licked his lips. His head was swimming, he figured they were both drunk enough to have forgotten this by morning, or at least feasibly pretend they had.  
  
“Were you really joking?”  
  
Ray’s eyes were huge, pupils blown wide in the dim light. He licked his own lips, unconsciously mimicking Brad as he stared up at him.  
  
“I wasn’t joking about you being drunk,” he said, raising his eyebrows.  
  
Brad shook his head, feeling like the world was realigning around them, shifting in prisms of different possibilities. “Ray.”  
  
“Brad.” Ray closed his eyes for a second. “Brad, what?”  
  
Brad reached across and cupped Ray’s chin in his trembling hand, stroked his thumb over the corner of his lips. He couldn’t really believe what he was doing, like he was watching it from the other side of a TV screen or something, watching someone else jump off the fucking cliff.  
  
But…but Ray _went_ with it, leaning into the touch the tiniest bit. And yeah, there was a part of Brad that was screaming at him to stop, to just go pass out in bed and forget it all, screaming at him to abort, abort, save his pride, save everything. There was a much bigger part, though, that was only listening to the pounding in his chest, only remembering the stupid, irrational want, only seeing Ray’s lips so fucking close, only wanting to find out what they tasted like, and fuck everything else.  
  
Fuck it.  
  
“I want to,” he whispered, almost to himself.  
  
Ray was frozen, still staring. “Brad, don’t do anything you’re gonna regret,” he warned, but his voice wasn’t as strong as it could be. He hadn’t moved away from Brad’s hand.  
  
Brad took a deep breath. “You’re supposed to be a Recon Marine,” he said. “How can you be so fucking oblivious?”  
  
Ray smiled, just a tiny twist of his lips. Brad could feel it against his thumb and it sent shivers right through him.  
  
“Guess I’m just exhausted from fucking your mom.”  
  
Brad laughed softly, and Ray’s smile grew a little. They sat there, still, the moment drawing out until the world seemed to be spinning out around Brad, around the contact of his hand on Ray’s face, and Ray’s eyes on his.  
  
After a while, though, it got too much, Brad had to break the silence before everything caved in on him and he couldn’t make another move. He coughed a little, clearing his throat, fighting through the drunk haze that was closing in. “So have you – have you ever?” he asked, and fuck, he was so drunk, his voice slurring all over the words.   
  
“Have I ever what?” Ray asked, like he didn’t goddamn know.  
  
Brad gave him a look, tried to keep his voice steady. “Have you ever fucked a man?”  
  
Ray pulled back, and Brad dropped his hand to his lap.   
  
Ray sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Is that what this is about? What I said today?”  
  
Brad shrugged. “Maybe. It depends on whether you were being honest or just spouting shit like usual.”  
  
Ray studied his hands, picked at his nails. Brad could only look at him, wait for him to say something, wait for confirmation that he’d fucked everything up well beyond repair – or not.  
  
Eventually, Ray looked back up at him. “No,” he said, and watched Brad’s face carefully while Brad tried not to give anything – anything more – away. “No, not – not really.” He dipped his head, looking up through his lashes. “But I would.”  
  
“ _Ray_.” Brad’s voice was soft; indistinct and broken. He touched Ray’s cheek again, felt that soft push against his hand like Ray was pressing into it. “I _want_ to.”  
  
"I don't... I don't understand why you're doing this," Ray said, frowning. "You’re being stupid, Iceman. You don’t even - you're so fucking straight. You're straighter than Walt. You're straighter than the _LT_."  
  
"I didn't realise there were so many different _levels_ of straight," Brad said. "Is there some kind of points system?"  
  
Ray rolled his eyes. "Yeah, homes, and you're winning. You're the opposite of gay, OK?"  
  
Brad felt reckless, wanted to be out of control for once in his life. He remembered what Rudy had said to him – let the Iceman melt. Be human. Be _stupid_. "What's that got to do with anything?"  
  
"It's got a lot to do with you hating yourself in the morning. Hating me in the morning."  
  
There was a look on Ray's face that hurt Brad to see, sadness and helplessness. Like he was already expecting the ramifications of this, already anticipating the bullshit coming down on him.   
  
"I _want_ to," Brad insisted. "And look, if you're gonna punch me in the face, just do it. At least then I'll know."  
  
Ray dropped his head against the couch cushions. "I wouldn't punch you in the face, Brad," he said with a quick sideways glance, and Brad thought maybe he meant more than what he was saying. "I just... Fuck. You're my _best friend._ "  
  
Brad shook his head. "I thought Walt was your best friend."  
  
"You turn into a fucking moron when you're drunk. It's not middle school, Brad, Walt doesn't have his _name_ tattooed on my _ass_."  
  
Brad snorted and reached down for the tequila, but maybe Ray was right about how drunk he was, because he knocked the bottle over, sent it rolling across the floor, spilling the last shot or two all over his rug.  
  
“Uh…”  
  
Ray laughed at him, breaking the tension, and hauled himself up to his feet. “Yeah, you’re a fuckin’ wreck, my friend. You need to go to bed.”  
  
Brad dropped his head to the back of the couch, running his eyes over Ray’s body, over his face. He was definitely drunk enough to admit, at least to himself, that the little prick was attractive, in a scrawny, scrappy, whiskey-tango hick kind of way. He’d thought it before – when he was fucking jerking off, for example – but never so clearly, never so pushed up to the top of his mind.  
  
“You’re kinda sexy,” he said out loud, and Ray laughed some more.  
  
“I know,” he said. “Come on, Brad, get up. Bedtime.”  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Yeah, homes. Let’s nip this in the bud, huh?” He reached down and hauled Brad up, almost buckling under the weight as he got Brad’s arm around his shoulders. Brad went with it, relying on Ray’s wiry strength as they stumbled off towards Brad’s bedroom.   
  
“Jesus fucking Christ, you been eating your Wheaties,” Ray bitched as he dumped Brad on his bed. Brad bounced, and then sighed in relief as his head hit the pillow.   
  
“You love me, don’t try to deny it,” he said, stretching out. When he glanced up, Ray was looking at him with the same expression that he’d thought he’d caught earlier, the one that told him he maybe wasn’t barking up the wrong tree at all, that maybe there could be something in this, however fucked up.  
  
“You know I do,” Ray sighed, and tugged at Brad’s shoes, letting them thump to the floor. “Why else would I put up with your heavy, wasted ass?” He wrangled the covers up over him and stepped back to admire his handiwork. “You’re not gonna choke on your fucking tongue in your sleep, are you?”  
  
“I’m not that drunk,” Brad said, despite all evidence to the contrary. He sat up, pulling his shirt off and tossing it over the side of the bed, before leaning back on his elbows. And fuck, yes, Ray was watching him.  
  
“You can – I’m drunk enough to be taken advantage of,” he said, heart in his mouth. “If that was something you were interested in.” He was in it now. This could only go one of two ways – he was either gonna pass out in disgrace, or Ray was gonna do this thing. Fuck.  
  
 _Fuck_.  
  
Ray moved forward, hesitantly resting one knee on the bed, and Brad’s heart skipped a beat. He stayed very still, like Ray was a wild animal that could be spooked into running if he made any sudden movements.  
  
“I still don’t get where this is coming from,” Ray was saying, “Not once, Brad, have I ever thought you might –”  
  
“I don’t know where it’s come from either,” Brad admitted. “But I can’t stop fucking thinking about it.”  
  
“I don’t want you to be experimenting with me like some pussy faggot with a liberal arts degree and a pair of skinny jeans,” Ray informed him, but he had one hand planted on the bed by Brad’s hip, and he was so close Brad could feel the heat coming off him in waves.   
  
He concentrated hard on finding the right words. “Look, tonight Rudy basically told me to stop being such a pansy and go after what I want,” he said quietly. He studied Ray’s face, his wide eyes, that _fucking_ mouth. “And I might be wasted, but I know what I want.”  
  
Ray hesitated, but he must have seen something on Brad’s face to convince him – Brad thought his whole heart was probably pasted over his forehead in neon – because after a long, breathless moment he gave a crooked smile. “Well alright then,” he muttered, playing up his hick accent to the hilt, and slowly, inch by painful inch, he moved in and brushed his lips over Brad’s.   
  
Brad was more terrified than he’d been driving through Muwaffaqiyah. At that moment he would have almost preferred the bullets flying at him to the press of Ray’s lips. He couldn’t react for a moment, petrified by the enormity of what was happening. And then Ray stopped.  
  
“Brad?”  
  
It was like he’d flicked a switch.   
  
“ _Yeah_.” He surged forward and kissed Ray properly, putting everything into it, the loneliness, the need, everything he couldn’t admit when he was sober and himself, everything the Iceman wasn’t. It was messy – they’d drunk too much for it to be romance-movie-perfect – and he felt weird and exposed, shocked at the feel of Ray’s stubble scratching him, but it was…everything he’d wanted. Everything he’d expected, everything he hadn’t let himself hope for.   
  
After a few perfect, brainless, heart-stopping moments, Ray pulled away, licking his lips. Brad couldn’t take his eyes off his mouth, at the red slickness of it. He didn’t care how much he’d had to drink. He knew he was never going to forget that, never going to forget how good those lips had felt on his.  
  
“I’m only doing this because I’m not in my right mind,” Ray said in a shaky voice. It wasn’t very convincing, his eyes were dark and he was panting, just a little, just enough for it to show. Brad felt a slow rush of arousal at the sight, at the thought that Ray wanted him, too.  
  
“What, I’m not hot enough for you?” he asked, grinning stupidly and sweeping his hand up Ray’s arm, over his bicep. “What do you normally look for in big gay boyfriends?”  
  
“Uh, not being one of my closest friends is one criteria,” Ray said, and Brad smirked as he noticed him shivering at his touch. He palmed the back of Ray’s neck, trying to bring him in for another kiss.  
  
“You know, I used to think you and Nate were part of this big repressed, heroic Greek love story,” Ray said out of the blue, resisting Brad’s efforts to get him closer. “It was totally gay. The two of you in theatre? All that bullshit nobility, giving each other these long, fraught looks all the fuckin’ time, like a pair of Greek homosexuals in skirts-”  
  
“Ok, you have an unhealthy obsession with both homosexuality and our CO,” Brad said. He brushed his thumb over Ray’s cheek. “I don’t want to have sex with Nate, you fucking freak.”  
  
“Are you sure? Because if you’re turning gay, Brad – and I still can’t freaking believe that – then Nate is kind of more on your level than a whiskey-tango dumbshit fuckup like me.”  
  
Brad shook his head. "I don't know why I put up with your shit," he said helplessly. He hauled Ray in. "I'm not gonna stroke your ego and tell you how much I - how completely wrong you are about all that," he said. "Fuck, Ray, all I wanna do is _this_." He kissed him again, long and slow, tugging him down until he fell onto the bed next to him, laid out on top of the covers. "Why do you have to make everything so damn difficult?" he muttered.  
  
Ray didn't answer, just kissed him back, bracing himself with his elbows on either side of Brad's head. It seemed to last for hours, Brad lost himself in it until there was nothing but the hot, wet slide of Ray's lips and tongue and the boozy, smoky scent of him. Brad touched him, his hair, rubbing the back of his neck, sweeping his palms down over his shoulders and arms. He noticed distantly that he was hard, turned on in a sort of low-key, throbbing way, but he was too drunk and tired to do anything about it. Time for that later. For now he was content to just make out, make it soft and lazy and sweet, fall asleep with Ray at his three, maybe wake up and do it all over in the morning.  
  
When Ray broke the kiss again and dropped his head to Brad's chest, Brad let him, running his hands in long strokes up and down his back.  
  
"You're getting soft, Brad," Ray said, sleepily, mumbling it into Brad's skin. Brad could feel his eyes drifting shut, the battle with the tequila being slowly lost.  
  
"You falling asleep on me like a little bitch?" he asked, throwing his arm around Ray's shoulders. Ray didn't answer in words, just pressed his face into Brad's chest and half-heartedly punched him in the thigh. "Yeah, I figured," Brad said, and let his eyes close, his nose in Ray’s hair. He was asleep in minutes, the taste of Ray still in his mouth.  
  
~  
  
When Brad opened his eyes the next morning, Ray was gone and in his place was the ball-sucking hangover from hell.  
  
He groaned and tried to burrow under his pillow. He hadn’t thought to close the blinds last night and the sunlight was streaming into his head like a swarm of angry killer bees, angry killer bees with fucking _sledgehammers_ , and maybe tiny pneumatic drills.  
  
“Jesus,” he whispered, kind of in awe at the epic-ness of the situation. “Jesus, fuck.”  
  
He was seriously considering suicide when Ray walked in and leaned against the door frame, watching him with an unreadable expression. Brad wanted to feel something other than pain, but it was gonna have to wait because, fuck. He had not been expecting this hangover.  
  
“Morning, sunshine,” Ray said, the little shit. “How’s the head?”  
  
“Fuck you forever,” Brad growled, squinting up at him. “Why the fuck aren’t you suffering?”  
  
Ray shrugged. “I have excellent metabolism,” he said. “The alcohol just kind of burns up and I don’t get hung-over. Same reason I can never put on any weight no matter how much fried chicken I eat. I’m pretty much the next step up from you on the evolutionary scale, Brad.”  
  
That sounded suspiciously like bullshit to Brad, but he was way too miserable to even attempt to parse Ray-ese. “I need you to go away now,” he said wretchedly, pulling his pillow back over his face. “Go away and don’t make any noise.”  
  
He closed his eyes and concentrated on holding the throbbing fragments of his skull together.   
  
Ray wasn’t leaving.  
  
“So, Brad, are we going to talk about-”  
  
“No.”  
  
“-about the two of us getting wasted and, you know, exploring each other’s bodies like a pair of fourteen-year-old girls playing Dare at a slumber party?”  
  
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He couldn’t deal with this. He couldn’t. He could barely even deal with breathing right now.  
  
“No. No, Ray, we’re not talking about it. Oh my god. Please. Go _away_.”  
  
Silence for ten blessed seconds, and then Ray’s voice, subdued now. “Right, well, that’s the thing. I got a call from Walt a minute ago.”  
  
Brad emerged from under his pillow and blinked at Ray, fighting through the pain. “Fuck, what? Is everything ok?”  
  
Ray smiled grimly, wouldn’t meet Brad’s eyes. “Not really. He knocked his girl up and now they need to get married as soon as fucking possible so she doesn’t show in her dress and disgrace her nice Southern Baptist family. He’s feeling a little screwed up the ass right now, so I’m flying out.”  
  
Brad sat up, and fuck the bees with sledgehammers, he felt like Ray had just walked over and kicked him in the head with his steel-toed boots. “You’re _leaving_?”  
  
Ray was studying the floor, his feet, whatever. He still wouldn’t look at Brad. “Yeah, I need to help him deal with this shit. He’s fucking useless without me there, homes.”  
  
 _So am I_ , Brad thought, and immediately buried it way, way down. He was starting to realise he might be doing that a lot over the next little while.   
  
“You’re leaving,” he repeated flatly. He didn’t know what to think, didn’t even know how to think about something like that. It seemed too harsh, too obvious – he makes an idiot out of himself drooling all over his RTO and the next morning his RTO _skips town_. He didn’t need to be a fucking Recon Marine to figure that shit out. “OK.”  
  
“Yeah.” Ray sighed. Brad leaned back on his pillows and tried not to feel anything, tried to live up to his damned name. “So Brad, I know you’re hung-over as fuck and feeling pretty shitty right now, but we should probably talk about it.”  
  
“Fuck off, Ray,” Brad said, rubbing his eyes. “We don’t need to talk about shit. You said it yourself, we were just fucking drunk.” He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want Ray to look at him and tell him it had been a mistake, didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness and the knowledge that he’d fucked everything to hell.  
  
“That’s what I thought,” Ray said quietly. “Ok, then. So I need to pack.”  
  
“You’re going _today_?”   
  
Ray nodded. “I guess if I’m gonna be the best man, I gotta do it right. He needs me, I’m there.”  
  
“I thought he _didn’t_ have his name tattooed on your ass,” Brad said without thinking, the words coming out of his mouth in a rush of bitterness and immediately making him want to shoot himself in the head. Ray just looked at him.  
  
“Fuck. Ray. I didn’t mean that.”  
  
“I know,” Ray said. “Look, Brad, its fine, OK? We don’t have to make a big fucking deal out of it. We’re not kids. Shit happens.”  
  
“I guess so.” Brad closed his eyes. He felt like crying. It was so pathetic, he was completely disgusted with himself, but there had been a split second, between waking up and the hangover assaulting him, where he’d been looking forward to Ray still being there, to maybe picking up where they’d left off. And now it was all _shit happens, see you later._  
  
Fuck if he was ever taking advice from Rudy again in his life.  
  
“You booked your flight?”  
  
“Earliest I could get was late this afternoon. I’ll stay out for my last week of leave, then fly straight back over to Pendleton. They’re gonna get hitched in like two months, so keep a few weekends free, I guess.” Ray’s eyes kept sliding away, over to the window, down at the floor, like he couldn’t really look at Brad for any length of time. “So I can call a cab.”  
  
“Fuck that.” Brad steeled himself, made himself look Ray in the face and smile. It was harder than kissing him had been. “I’ll drive you. Just let me sleep first, ok?”  
  
Ray smiled back, small and tentative. “You fucking pussy,” he said, and backed out of the room. “Sweet dreams, sleeping beauty.”  
  
Yeah. Somehow, Brad doubted it.


	3. Silence

_It's a love affair  
On a quiet Sunday afternoon  
And your speedy pills  
You should know I'm into you_  
  
Secret, Howie Day  
  
  
The day after Ray left, Brad spent a straight four hours in the ocean.  
  
He had a week left of leave, a week left before he had to square everything away and rejoin the real world, a week of gazing at all the empty holes that Ray should still have been filling. All he wanted was to be surrounded by something bigger than him, something more powerful, something that could overtake his stupid, petty problems and wash them away.  
  
Something to make him forget.  
  
So he surfed, and swam, and ran for hours along the beach until all he could do was collapse at home and ignore the messages on his phone, lie on his couch and watch TV and pretend everything was normal, pretend that when he went back to base –when he came face-to-face with Ray – everything was going to be the exact same as it always had been. He wouldn’t remember the press of his mouth, the taste of him, the feel of his hard, slight body pressed up against his own, the way his arms had bracketed his head and held him together when he’d felt like he was about to fly apart. He was going to forget about all of that, and everything was going to be normal.  
  
He wasn’t doing a great job of convincing himself.  
  
Four days after Ray left, he was making himself a cup of coffee when he was interrupted by a pounding at the door. He was considering ignoring it, just hiding in the kitchen until whoever it was went away, but then Tony’s voice boomed through his house, loud and pissed off.  
  
“Brad, I know you’re in there you giant freak of nature. Give up the damn hermit act and let me the fuck in before I break down your motherfucking door. You think I don’t know how to get into wealthy white people’s houses? I’m Mexican, bro!”  
  
Brad sighed and rested his forehead against a cupboard door. “If I ignore you, will you go away like that rash you gave me?” he shouted back, and Tony laughed.  
  
“I’m way nastier than any rash you ever had, dawg!” Brad opened the door and glared at Tony, who just pushed his way past him. “Oh, shit, you’re alive. I was half expecting to find your dead body lying in a corner getting eaten by cats or something.”  
  
“Cats?”  
  
“Whatever, dude. You been off the radar. What the fuck is up with you?”  
  
Brad sighed and led Tony out onto the back porch, where he immediately began inspecting his plants, poking his finger at the cactuses. “I’ve just been enjoying having my quiet back now that Person’s fucked back off to Hicksville. You all worry like a bunch of mother hens.”  
  
“Yeah, well, when you don’t answer your phone for four days, what the fuck are we supposed to do?” Tony looked at him properly for the first time. “Honestly, Brad, is everything ok?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Brad said, and sank down onto the swing. “I seriously just needed some time alone, needed a while to get my head clear before I get back in the shit on Monday.”  
  
“Uh huh.” Tony didn’t sound convinced, but he let it drop.  
  
“You hear about Hasser?” Brad asked, for something to fill the silence.  
  
“Yeah, the grapevine in this bitch is rocket-fuelled. It’s all over the platoon.” Tony shrugged. “When’s he getting married now? Couple months?”  
  
Brad stared out into his backyard. “I guess. With his girl knocked up, I suppose they wanna rush it through.”  
  
“Nice white girl can’t be showing in her nice white dress,” Tony agreed. “So say goodbye to Walt. I don’t think he’s got it in him to be a career boy, especially not with a kid. Same with Ray, really. I’d be surprised if he re-ups.”  
  
Brad looked up, startled. “He say anything about that to you? When’d you speak to him?”  
  
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Settle, dawg. I just get the impression that our pal Ray isn’t really a career Marine either. He’s the kinda guy that proves he can do something then moves onto the next thing.”  
  
“Uh huh.” Brad tried to envision a life without Ray in it, couldn’t do it. “I guess we’ll see.”  
  
Tony sighed at him. “Ok, Brad, seriously?”  
  
“Seriously, Poke?” Brad met his stare, they didn’t call him the Iceman for fucking nothing, but Tony just shook his head.  
  
“When was the last time you got laid?”  
  
Brad had to admit, that threw him. He flashed back to his night with Ray, the long, slow kisses, the touches, and blushed. A long fucking time, was the sorry answer. “Fuck off.”  
  
“Yeah, I thought so. Do me and the rest of the platoon a favour, dude, and get some pussy before you come back to work. You’re acting like a little bitch with PMS, and it’s not good for team morale.”  
  
Brad rolled his eyes and snatched up his watering can for something to do, for an excuse to avoid Tony’s gaze. “You sound like my mother. Like some sick, twisted, mentally disturbing version of my mother.”  
  
Tony laughed and clapped him on the back. “Just get some, Brad. And what the fuck are you doing, you crazy white motherfucker. You don’t need to water cactuses.”  
  
Brad stared at the little puddle of mud that had formed in the flowerpot, then up at Tony. “Oh. Good to know.”  
  
~  
  
One week.  
  
Two weeks.  
  
He got through work. It was fine. He could almost imagine that nothing had happened at all. Ray was the exact same as always – loud and obnoxious, with no concept of personal space or any sense of propriety whatsoever. Brad knew he was being awkward and weird around him at times, but he thought he covered it well enough, covered up the thing inside him that was screaming to be acknowledged.  
  
Yeah, Brad caught himself staring, and yeah, he thought Ray caught him a few times too, but it was fine. If Brad got home at night and had to jerk off to the thought of Ray in his PT gear, or Ray doing laps in the pool, or Ray just breathing in general, that was fine too. He wasn’t a kid. He wasn’t some teenage girl with a crush. He knew how to deal with it.  
  
Three weeks.  
  
He saw his folks a few times, his sister bought him a hydrangea in a pot. He went out to dinner with Nate and his girlfriend and smiled in the right places, he spoke to Tony on the weekend, emailed an old friend from school. He lived. And Ray lived right there, next to him, apart from him like he’d never been before, and Brad didn’t know how to change it.  
  
At base, Walt was putting the finishing touches on his wedding, spending half his time freaking out at Ray and the other half talking about ultrasounds and baby names. Brad listened in with a smile, everything tamped down so tight it wasn’t even an issue.  
  
“Harrison. McClane. Sigourney.”  
  
“Enough with the eighties action heroes, homes. Felicity had never even seen _Die Hard_ until two weeks ago. You’re just going to have to make your peace with that.”  
  
Walt bit his lip. “I really like McClane, though. Maybe a middle name?”  
  
Ray looked hurt. “Fliss said you’d decided on Ray for a middle name!” he protested. “Walt, if you don’t name your child after me I’m taking back every nice thing I ever said about country music.”  
  
“You’re naming your baby after Person?” Brad interrupted. “Walt, why would you subject an innocent child to that kind of torment?”  
  
Walt grinned and shrugged. “For some reason my fiancée likes him. I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s pretty set.”  
  
“That’s why I’m the best man,” Ray explained. “ _Best_ man. Walt is second best.”  
  
Brad shook his head. “You’re a pair of inbred hicks with co-dependency issues,” he announced. “Walt, I feel sorry for your future wife.”  
  
“Yeah, she puts up with a lot,” Walt agreed happily. “Come on, Ray. You hitchin’ a ride with me?”  
  
Ray looked at Brad, like he did sometimes, like he was waiting for something – who the hell knew what. Brad concentrated on the sunlight coming in through the windows, on the dust motes floating in the air, on anything but Ray’s eyes.  
  
“You coming tonight?” Ray asked, cocking his hip against Brad’s desk. Brad looked up at him.  
  
“Of course.” His gaze skated over Ray’s face, down his neck and away. It was Walt’s bachelor party; they were taking over one of the local bars with one clear mission statement – get shitfaced.  
  
“Brad.” Ray’s voice was quiet, and Brad turned his head to watch Walt leave the room. “ _Brad_.”  
  
“What?” Brad finally turned back, looked Ray in the eye.  
  
Ray gave him a small, crooked smile. “You all good?”  
  
“I’m fine, Ray.”  
  
“Well good. Because I don’t want you being a mopey little bitch tonight and spoiling Walt’s party.”  
  
“I’ll show you who’s a little bitch,” Brad said, and pushed up, shoving Ray towards the door. “You fuckin’ sister humping country bumpkin, get the fuck outta here.”  
  
“Ahh,” Ray said. “There’s the Iceman I know and love.”  
  
Brad stared at the back of his head, both hated and loved that he knew exactly what it felt like cradled in the palm of his hand. He wanted to shove him up against the wall and hold him there, kiss the fuck out of him until he looked bleary and stupid with lust. Instead he bit his lip, concentrating on the pain until the thoughts of Ray – _on his knees, on his back, bent over the fucking desk_ – were edged out, pushed to the back of his mind and hidden away, where they belonged.  
  
He thought maybe Tony was right. Maybe he just needed to get laid, needed to get it out of his system. He hadn’t even been thinking about it, but now he figured maybe he’d look, just see what was on offer, see if there was something out there that could distract him from thoughts of his RTO.  
  
 _Let it work,_ he thought to himself, following Ray out the door. J _esus. Let it fucking work._  
  
~  
  
She was a redhead, maybe a foot shorter than Brad, and she was full of curves in her denim skirt and beat-up AC/DC tee-shirt. Brad listened to her talk, smiled at her, brushed his thumb over her wrist when he handed her a drink, watched her lick her lips. Her name was Lena, and he had spent a good five minutes staring at the way her black leather boot pressed into her calf before Tony had pushed him over, woken him up.  
  
It was still early, he hadn’t been drinking, just watching his boys get more and more wasted, Ray and Walt throwing back shots like it was the last night of their lives. Brad thought for half a second that he really was jealous of the easy way they had with each other, the uncomplicated friendship, but he didn’t have it in him. Walt looked like he was lit up from the inside, and he checked for messages from his girl every five minutes, making Ray laugh at him and steal his phone. Brad wasn’t jealous. But he thought he’d start looking elsewhere anyway, and that’s where Lena came in.  
  
She was beautiful, warm and funny, laughed a lot. It was easy to whisper in her ear and ask if she wanted to get out of there, easy to nuzzle against her in the cab, smelling her hair, her perfume, the sweet scent of her sweat.  
  
Easy enough to pretend he wasn’t thinking about Ray when he pressed her against the front door of her apartment and kissed her. She moaned and wrapped her arms around him, lightly scratched her nails down his neck and up over the back of his head. Easy, easy to scoop her up and carry her down the hall as she giggled and gave him directions to her bedroom. Easy to lay her out on her bed and push up her skirt, get a hand on her, make her whimper and spread her legs and ask nicely for more.  
  
He took her with her little body spooned into his, his face buried in her hair and her hands clutching at his arms. He rubbed her clit with his fingers until she came apart around him, hot little pulses on his cock, and then he rolled her onto her stomach, watched his sweat drip down onto her back as he fucked her until she came again, biting at the pillow to muffle her cries. That set him off, and for the first time since Ray had gone his mind went blank with bliss, his orgasm finally wiping away the sense-memory of Ray’s skin.  
  
“Oh, God, Brad,” she sighed as he pulled out, tying off the condom and tossing it on the floor to deal with later. “Jesus. That was…”  
  
“Yeah,” he agreed, and pulled her close, getting the covers over them. “You’re amazing.”  
  
She grinned up at him. “You gonna be here in the morning?” He paused, and she nodded, settled down into his arms. “It’s cool. Just don’t leave right now, ok?”  
  
He dropped kisses all over her face, saw a spray of freckles peeking out from under her makeup. “I’m not going anywhere yet, honey,” he assured her. “I got you.”  
  
But as he watched her fall asleep he realised he _wanted_ to leave, wanted to get out of there and have a shower, go back home and stand in the room Ray had slept in, see if he could capture the scent of him, the feel of him. It wasn’t fair, he knew. If he’d met Lena before he went to Iraq… but he hadn’t, and it wasn’t what he wanted anymore.  
  
He wasn’t an asshole. He knew what it took for a woman to take a guy home, to invite him into her house and open herself up for him, leave herself vulnerable, knew how brave that was. But he slipped out anyway, leaving a note promising that she was beautiful and perfect and amazing. It wasn’t enough, and he remembered her sweet, trusting face with total self-loathing, but he thought maybe it was worse to stay and pretend, worse still to stay and try and explain that he was in love with someone else, that she’d basically been a way for him to forget.  
  
He got home and took his shower and stood in the doorway of Ray’s room and felt like absolute shit. There wasn’t any use trying to hide it from himself – no point. He was fucking in love with Ray. He had to square this shit away now, but he said it out loud anyway, just once. “I’m in love with Ray.” The words disappeared into the empty room, vanished like they’d never been, and Brad stared at the darkness blankly for a moment, before thinking _fuck_ it, and pulling out his cell.  
  
He’d square it away in the morning. Right now he needed Ray’s voice in his ear, just to torture himself a little more, just because he wanted to get the sound of Lena moaning out of his head, just because he was getting more pathetic by the minute and the silence was starting to press in around him again, and he couldn’t seem to put an end to it. He knew he was a moron. But he settled down on the spare bed and dialed the number anyway.  
  
“Why the fuck are you calling me, motherfucker? I saw you leave with that total hottie – please don’t tell me you need me to talk you through it, Brad. Say it hasn’t gone that far.”  
  
Ray wasn’t at the bar anymore, Brad could tell by the lack of background noise. He stretched out and closed his eyes, smelling orange blossoms and salt and the faintest traces of cigarette smoke.  
  
“Ray.”  
  
“I’ll give you a hint, insert tab A into slot B – _not_ slot C, unless she’s really freaky like that.”  
  
“Yeah, I managed to figure it out just fine, fucknuts,” Brad said dryly. Ray’s voice was hoarse from too much shouting and smoking. It was kind of how Brad imagined it’d sound after he’d gotten through deep-throating him.  
  
His dick twitched at the thought, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He shouldn’t be thinking about that shit. He knew better. But now he’d started on this slippery slope, he apparently couldn’t stop.  
  
“Oh, so you did get laid. Congratulations,” Ray said. Brad thought he sounded a little pissed off, but he was probably just projecting, wishful thinking. “So I repeat: why the fuck are you calling me instead of angling for round two?”  
  
“I left. I’m at home already,” Brad said quickly. “No round two with this one.”  
  
“What? Why’d you leave?”  
  
Brad sighed and tried to stop the images racing through his head, tried to stem the rush of words. “I don’t know,” he said, voice tight. “It wasn’t…what I really wanted, I guess.”  
  
“ _Why_?” Ray’s voice was sharp and to the point.  
  
 _Because she wasn’t you_ , Brad said in his head, almost tasting the words in his mouth before thinking better of it. “Because she wasn’t your mom.”  
  
Ray laughed, his wrecked voice scraping over Brad’s nerves until he was fully hard, lying there turned on and lonely with his best friend in his ear. It was fucking miserable, and all he wanted to do was get off the phone so he could jerk off with Ray’s voice still fresh in his mind.  
  
He shook his head at himself, pressing the palm of his hand against his dick, and tried to concentrate on what Ray was actually saying.  
  
“You’re telling me Jessica Rabbit didn’t do it for you, Brad? What the fuck kind of sexual crisis are you going through? This, that thing with me the other week-”  
  
“I thought we weren’t talking about that,” Brad interrupted, his heart jumping. “Jesus, Ray, where’s your head?”  
  
“Settle down, Iceman. One, don’t even stress. I’m at Walt’s, and he’s in a vodka coma. No one’s fucking listening. And two, _you_ decided we weren’t talking about it, and I just now decided: fuck you.”  
  
“Fuck _you_ ,” Brad said lamely. “Really, Ray?”  
  
“Oh, we’re gonna talk about it eventually,” Ray assured him. “You’re gonna stop being such an emotionally stunted Neanderthal, and we’re gonna talk the fuck out of it. In fact, we’re gonna talk about it so long and hard that neither of us will be able to sit down for a week. What do you think of that, Brad?”  
  
Brad had to laugh. “How drunk are you, Ray?”  
  
“Pretty fuckin’ drunk, homes!” Ray crowed. “But don’t you think I’m gonna forget about this. Oh, no. I may be too wasted to have this conversation now, but look-” Brad heard him clattering around, knocking shit over. “I’m writing a fucking reminder note on Walt’s message board – jeez, Brad, who the fuck has a message board?”  
  
“Walt?”  
  
“Doesn’t matter. Lookit – it’s all in code and shit. _R, talk to B about SC_.”  
  
“What does SC stand for?” Brad asked against his better judgement.  
  
“Sexual crisis, you dunce. Where have you been for the last five minutes? Man, this is gonna blow Walt’s mind when he sees it. He’s gonna think its some secret ninja shit all up in his apartment. Fuckin’ A.”  
  
I love you, Brad thought helplessly as he let Ray drunkenly ramble on. I love you, you psychotic little whiskey-tango ball of hyperactive nonsense. I love you, and that’s fine, but I also wanna fuck you until you scream my name in that messed up hick voice, and I know you like men and you’re _so close_ and it’s not fucking fair.  
  
And I’ve goddamned ruined everything.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“Ray,” he said, and Ray must have heard something in his voice, because he shut up straight away for a change and listened. “Ray, just tell me one thing, will you?”  
  
“Yeah, Brad, what do you need?”  
  
Brad took a deep breath, caught the ghost of Ray’s scent again. “Just. Just tell me I didn’t fuck everything up.”  
  
There was a minute of silence on the other end. Brad stared out the window, at the stars peeking through a palm tree, at the whole night in between him and Ray.  
  
“Nah, Brad,” Ray finally said quietly, his whiskey-smoke voice almost down to a whisper. “You ain’t fucked up a single thing with me.”  
  
Brad nodded to himself, wanted so hard to believe it.  
  
“I’m gonna go to bed,” he said. “I’ll see you at base.”  
  
“Night, homes,” Ray replied. “Sleep tight.”  
  
Brad smiled. “Don’t puke on yourself,” he warned, and he hung up to the sound of Ray’s laughter.  
  
The spare bed wasn’t as big as his own, and he wanted his pillow, but he just let himself close his eyes anyway, pulled the sheets up over his body. He hadn’t changed them since Ray had gone, and he drew them up to his face, breathing in deep. They didn’t bring Ray any closer.  
  
But he kept breathing them in and pretended they did.  
  
~  
  
The Friday before Walt’s wedding, Nate announced that he was retiring from the Marine Corps.  
  
Even though he knew it was coming, Brad was hit hard. Seeing Nate up there addressing the platoon, pressed and stiff like the starch in his uniform was the only thing holding him up, Brad felt like it was just one more part of his life that was falling apart, changing, morphing into something he wasn’t sure how to deal with.  
  
Looking around at the other members of the platoon, it was obvious he wasn’t alone. They were used to being fucked by officers, but not Nate. And when Brad thought ahead to a chain of command without Nate in it to soften the blows of incompetence and stupidity, it definitely felt like a fucking.  
  
He waited as everyone filed out, hoping to catch him alone, but Ray got there first, looking up at Nate with serious eyes and saying something that Brad couldn’t catch. Nate nodded at him, and they headed out together. Brad watched them go, hanging back until he was alone in the room, alone with himself and the memory of Ray’s sad eyes.  
  
He remembered what Ray had said weeks ago, about not fitting in, about the Marines making him something that didn’t mesh with his idea of himself, about walking down the street in his hometown and feeling like a stranger, a fake. Brad had been so caught up in his own issues – in being in love, in being alone – that he hadn’t stopped to give thought to Ray’s. Ray had been fine when he was staying at Brad’s, happy, carefree, showing his best side. But maybe now he was back in it, back in the uniform, he was starting to doubt shit again. Brad realised that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to know for sure.  
  
He stood for a second, frowning at nothing, at himself. He’d been sticking his head in the sand, wallowing in his own misery like a disaffected fourteen year old, and he’d let Ray down. He shook his head, angry at himself, frustrated at his life. The silence had been ebbing and flowing, but right now it came crashing in on him like something tangible, and this time he knew it was his own fault. He thought of Ray’s drunken promise on the phone from the other night, him swearing that they were going to talk – he’d avoided being alone with Ray since then, avoided letting him even open his mouth, which was so fucking stupid because Ray and his words were the only things keeping him afloat.  
  
He couldn’t believe he’d let things come to this, let it come to Ray walking off with Nate because he couldn’t rely on his best friend.  
  
Something had to change.  
  
He was walking towards the parking lot later when Nate came up on his nine and fell into step with him, shooting him a quick smile.  
  
“Hey, LT.”  
  
Nate laughed. “I’m never going to get a chance to get used to being called Captain, am I?”  
  
“Sorry.” Brad raised an eyebrow. “Captain LT.”  
  
“Funny. That’s exactly what Ray said.”  
  
Brad smiled wryly, shook his head. “He has his flashes of brilliance, sir.”  
  
“More than flashes.” Nate paused, an expression on his face like he was forming something in his head and didn’t know how to spit it out. “Brad, I want you to tell me if this isn’t my place,” he started, and Brad’s stomach dropped a little.  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“I’ve noticed you haven’t been yourself lately. Ray either.”  
  
Brad stared at the ground as they walked, watched the strands of grass bending in the wind, crushed under their boots.  
  
“I’m all squared away,” he said, aware of how stilted he sounded, how fake. Nate nodded.  
  
“I hope so, Brad,” he said. “I know how close you are, and I don’t want this to sound too forward, but-”  
  
“ _Nate_.”  
  
“But I want you to look out for him,” Nate continued relentlessly. “The Marine Corps is a great institution, and I’m proud to have served, but the more I get to know Ray the more I realise that this place will fuck him up completely if he lets it.” He looked Brad in the eye. “This isn’t a career for him – it’s a statement. I need you to remind him of that.”  
  
Brad didn’t know what to say. It was an echo of his conversation with Tony, but coming from Nate… He didn’t know which idea was worse, the Marines without Nate _and_ Ray, or a Ray sucked dry by the Corps – Ray, who spoke ancient languages and read works by authors who Brad had never even heard of: Ray with his brilliance ground into the dust.  
  
Nate was still looking at him, watching him process. “Sort out your issues, Brad,” he said. “Make it right with him. I don’t need – I don’t want the details of what happened. It’s as clear as day that something did.” He held up his hands. “Just do what you have to do. Because it isn’t just _him_ that needs _you_.”  
  
Brad swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean by that, sir.”  
  
Nate gave him a look, the one that made Brad feel like Nate could see his insides, like Nate was saying a lot more with his eyes than he was with his words.  
  
“The two of you hold each other up, Brad. Don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever underestimate how fortunate you are to have that kind of friendship.”  
  
Brad thought he detected a slight pause in front of the word ‘friendship’, like Nate had been searching for the right term, had settled on something that didn’t quite work. He had to be imagining that, though, hyper-sensitive, paranoid, so hung up on the craziness that was his life that he was projecting. Except…  
  
He stared hard at Nate, silently begging him to drop it. “I get it, Nate,” he said, struggling to keep his voice light. “Ray’s mine. I’ll take care of him.”  
  
Nate clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know you will.”  
  
Brad shook his head as Nate headed off without him, watching him go with something like awe, something like terror. He wished to God he could feel as confident about anything in his life as Nate was about _everything_.  
  
“Nate!” he called suddenly, stepping forward. Nate turned and looked at him, shielding his eyes against the setting sun.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Thank you,” Brad said haltingly. “For everything. I appreciate it.”  
  
Nate nodded. “You’re welcome, Brad.”  
  
“See you at the wedding?”  
  
“Yeah.” Nate smiled. “I’ll see you and Ray there.”  
  
Brad tried not to analyse that one as he got into his car. But he liked the sound of it, _him and Ray_ , on someone else’s tongue. It was still crazy, and it was still pathetic, but.  
  
He was smiling a little, to himself, as he drove home.  
  
~  
  
Walt’s fiancé was from his hometown, but she was moving out to California, and the wedding was being held in a little chapel on base. They weren’t getting a honeymoon: Walt’s leave was all used up, and he could theoretically be redeployed at any time, but the Marines were at least giving him this, the chance to get married among his brothers, take his new bride home to his little flat and set her up to be a Marine wife. “She’ll just be waiting for me in Cali instead of Virginia,” Walt had said. “I’m worried for her, you know, but at least we’re not on opposite sides of the country, or the world.”  
  
“I’ll take care of her,” Ray had assured him, and Brad expected Walt to look dubious, but he’d looked relieved instead, trusting. Layers of things between them that Brad would never understand, layers of Ray that weren’t his. He had to make his peace with that, though, think of all the layers that _were_.  
  
A few days before the wedding, Walt had asked Brad to be a groomsman, almost shyly explaining that he didn’t have any brothers or cousins, that the guys in his platoon had been closer than family anyway. Brad had agreed, of course, and then the day was finally upon them and he was milling around, uncomfortable in his dress blues with a bridesmaid giving him suggestive smiles from across the church.  
  
He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Ray, but Ray was right there, smiling big and loving being centre of attention, even though it wasn’t even his freaking wedding. Brad hadn’t been able to take his eyes off him all day, trying to notice all the stuff he’d been missing. All he knew was that, once again, something was changing.  
  
But there was more going on than his inner turmoil.  
  
The wedding was beautiful, even Brad could admit that. Walt looked about twelve in his dress blues, grinning like a kid on his birthday as his bride walked up the aisle of the chapel. She was lovely, exactly the kind of girl Brad had imagined for Walt, big hair and a big, gorgeous smile. She looked like a doll in her slightly old-fashioned dress, tiny and fragile up there next to Walt and his groomsmen. Brad immediately felt protective of her, knew what Walt meant about family, this felt closer to home than when Brad had been with his own parents, this was what he’d been searching for, his brothers – his Marines, all together… and Ray.  
  
He glanced over at him a few times while Walt and Felicity were saying their vows, saw him scrub roughly at his eyes and kind of melted.  
  
Any lingering, petty jealously he’d been feeling towards Walt and Ray’s friendship finally vanished, shriveling up in the face of their happiness. He realised that Walt and Ray were best friends in a way that he – the eternal loner – had never really experienced. They’d be friends all their lives, have happy summer BBQs, bitch about the kids, take vacations together, watch football on each other’s TVs…  
  
But Brad didn’t want that from Ray. Brad wanted something…not more, just different. Standing there, watching Ray crying as his best friend got married, Brad finally faced up to what a coward he’d been. Finally made the choice – and it came so easy, after all – that he was gonna go for it. No drink to ease the way, no excuses, just him and Ray and whatever it was between them finally out in the open. He was going to man up and be the one who took care of Ray, and let Ray take care of him. He was going to tell Ray the truth, and it might all fall to pieces, but at least he’d know, at least he’d have tried. The last couple of months had been like living in a cave, seeing everything in tunnel vision. And now he was ready to step outside his self-imposed exile.  
  
Ray turned and looked at him then, eyes a little red, and Brad gave him what might have been his first real, open smile since the night of the BBQ. Ray looked surprised and pleased, and he smiled back, dimples popping up and making Brad almost desperate to touch, press his fingers into them. He restrained himself, and nodded at Ray, who nodded back, and then it was time for him to step forward and hand over the rings.  
  
Ray stepped up to Walt and pulled him into a hug. Brad felt his chest go tight as they clung to each other, had to struggle not to tear up himself. Then Walt and Felicity were husband and wife, and everyone was crying, and rose petals were falling down around them, and it was almost more than he could handle.  
  
“You ok, Iceman?” Ray asked as they headed to the door of the chapel, getting ready to draw their swords and form the honour guard.  
  
“Just mourning the loss of Walt’s innocence,” he said. “And his combat pay.”  
  
“Don’t even front, dude. I totally saw you choking back tears. The Iceman can melt.”  
  
“Yeah, I can,” Brad said, as they stepped out into the sunshine. “You know that. You’ve seen it.”  
  
Ray didn’t say anything to that, just looked at him silently for a minute before they had to line up for the guard.  
  
Brad was opposite Nate, who was grinning at all the ceremony, since obviously that was the kind of shit officers got off on. They tapped their blades together, held them high, and when Walt and Felicity ducked through them, Brad realised that he was truly fucking happy.  
  
It was actually kind of a novelty.  
  
~  
  
Ray’s best man speech made every single person at the reception cry, up to and including Walt and Felicity.  
  
Brad stared at his table, watched a couple of spots appear and expand outwards, his tears soaking into his napkin, and listened to Ray talk about loyalty, and what it meant to be a Marine, about family and about how they’d all, every one of them, die for Walt, and now they’d die for Felicity, too.  
  
“We drove through a war in a humvee together,” he said. “And that kind of bond can never be erased. I’ve seen Walt fire his weapon in defense of me, and I’ve stood in front of bullets in the defense of him. It means so much to me that now he’s got someone else at his side, someone I can count on to take care of him, someone who can be all the things that the Marine Corps can’t. Felicity, Walt is yours now, we all are. We trust that you’ll be worthy of that, and you know that for as long as you both live, we’ll never, ever let you down.”  
  
Brad looked around the room, saw men casually rubbing at their eyes like, hey, bit of dust must have floated in there, saw women gazing up at Ray like they were planning on jumping his bones as soon as they could get him alone. Tony was sitting next to him, shaking his head and sniffling and kind of laughing at himself, and Rudy was crying unashamed, a big smile on his face. It was somewhat pathetic, Brad had to admit, but again he felt that kinship, the sense of family and togetherness. The silence washing away again.  
  
Ray sat down, and Brad caught his eye. He knew what he was going to do, tried to let it show on his face, watching Ray carefully to see if he was picking up the signal. Ray just smiled, shook his head fondly, and kind of rolled his eyes. Brad smiled back.  
  
“Dude, will you stop making eyes at Person? It’s kind of making me uncomfortable,” Tony hissed, elbowing him in the side. Brad just laughed.  
  
The reception was at a nice hotel off base. Walt and Felicity’s parents had rented out a function room and a floor for all of the wedding party to stay in, probably not wanting to be responsible for setting an entire platoon of drunk Marines free on the streets of California. Brad didn’t drink, though. He hung around for the dinner, danced a few dances with assorted bridesmaids and Nate’s girlfriend – who’d been looking at Nate dreamily and was obviously starting to get ideas of her own – talked shit with the boys.  
  
He hadn’t spoken to Ray much, but he kept his eye on him, watched him monitor Walt’s alcohol consumption, probably on strict instructions from Walt’s new wife, and when Walt and Felicity said their goodbyes and disappeared upstairs, Ray went with them, waving at the guests and hovering behind the new couple in case one of them, Brad didn’t know what, spontaneously combusted or something. Ray was obviously taking his duties seriously.  
  
He didn’t come back down after that. Brad waited a while, then said goodbye to the boys, most of whom were too drunk to notice or care that he was going anyway, and headed up to their floor, heart pounding in his chest.  
  
His and Ray’s rooms were next to each other, and he hesitated at Ray’s door for a minute before moving on to his own room, sitting down on the bed and staring at the wall between them.  
  
He couldn’t let himself think about this. He’d thought too much already, gotten lost inside his own head. And the only time he’d been honest, true to himself, was when he’d kissed Ray – and he’d been blind drunk. He figured maybe he could do a better job of it this time.  
  
The thing was, the thing that was giving him the courage he needed now, was that he thought he’d been wrong the morning after. He thought that – maybe – if he’d said the right words, Ray would have crawled back into bed with him, would have kissed him goodbye instead of gone with an awkward half-wave, would have come back _his_ , instead of this weird sometimes-stranger he now was.  
  
If only he’d had the right fucking words.  
  
He pulled out his phone and dialed Ray’s number.  
  
“Will you stop fucking drunk dialing me, Brad? This shit is getting old.”  
  
“I’m not drunk,” Brad said, keeping his tone light. “I’m bored. Get over here and entertain me.”  
  
“Dude, seriously? I’m fucking wrecked. I was just about to go to bed.”  
  
Brad chewed his nail, thought his gaze might actually drill a hole into the wall between them. “Ray, get your whiny little bitch ass over here before I have to go over there and get you.”  
  
“For fuck’s sake.” Ray sighed and hung up. Brad let his phone drop to the bed and held his breath, a second later there was a knock at the door, and he let it out in a long gust and got up to let Ray in.  
  
“I thought I was the one who needed to be babysat and given constant stimulation,” Ray bitched as he pushed past Brad into the room. “I swear, Iceman, you’re like a three-year-old. Ray, I’m bored, Ray, I’m hungry, Ray I need to go potty.” He stood in front of the bed with his hands on his hips – he’d changed out of his dress blues and into a pair of sweatpants and a wifebeater, his feet were bare. Brad kind of wanted to stare at them.  
  
“Ray,” he said again, and took a step forward. He wasn’t good with words. They weren’t his strong suit. But he was going to have to find the right ones, fast. “Your speech was…”  
  
“Yeah, my speech rocked,” Ray interrupted. “My speech is currently making all other speeches cry with envy. Right now Walt is off having the best sex he’s ever going to have in his life, and it’s all because of my speech.”  
  
“Probably,” Brad agreed, and took another step closer. Ray lifted his eyes and licked his lips, Brad mimicked the motion. “I’ve got something I need to say.”  
  
“Don’t say it,” Ray said quickly. “Shush. Be quiet.”  
  
“That’s my line,” Brad murmured. He held up his hand as Ray opened his mouth. “No, you shut up. I should have said this forever ago.” He took a deep breath. “You’re my Patrokles. Not Nate. I always thought it was you.”  
  
Ray blinked. “I’m your _Patrokles_?”  
  
Ok, on second thought, it was a pretty fucking cheesy line. Brad felt his cheeks redden, but he nodded stubbornly. “Yep.”  
  
“Fuck, Brad.” Ray eyed him wearily and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are you trying to say?”  
  
Brad leaned against the bedside table. He’d given up on not looking at Ray’s feet, at the way his toes were curling into the carpet. “I thought it was pretty obvious.”  
  
“Man,” Ray looked pained. “ _Don’t_ say this. You’re my best friend.”  
  
Brad shook his head. “No, _Walt_ is your best friend,” he said, without rancour. “You and Walt are gonna grow old together as next door neighbours and spend the rest of your lives drinking beer on each others front porches.” He paused, built up every single ounce of courage he had in his body and forced the words out of his mouth. “And I think I’m in love with you.”  
  
Ray dug his toes further into the carpet. He looked really small, and really lethal, like at any moment he could stand up and punch his fist through Brad’s throat. He looked tired and a little drunk; he looked healthy and tanned and well fed; he looked like the kind of person who read _The Iliad_ in ancient Greek; he looked like the kind of person Brad would never have looked at twice, until he did.  
  
“Ok, let me put it this way,” Ray said, his voice shaky. “Don’t say this because I’ve been in love with you for years, and if you fuck with me? It will fucking kill me. Can’t do it, Brad.”  
  
Brad went very still, closed his eyes against what he’d just heard, closed his eyes against his own hope. “You’ve been in love with me for years?”  
  
“Yeah, don’t get excited,” Ray replied ruefully. “I’ve been in love with Lara Croft for years, too.”  
  
Brad opened his eyes, took in Ray’s red face. “I’m less pixelated,” he pointed out, and dropped to his knees in front of the bed, trying to catch Ray’s eye.  
  
“You’re also a lot less stacked,” Ray said. “And you don’t look as good in short shorts.”  
  
Words, just more words. This time Brad recognised them for what they were, Ray building a wall around himself. He set about knocking it down.  
  
“ _You_ wanted to talk about this,” he reminded him. “My sexual crisis? You’re it, Ray. I mean, I can’t be any clearer than this. I love you too.”  
  
Ray winced, turned his face away. “Brad…Brad, I can’t…”  
  
Brad took his chin in his hand, gently turned his face back. They were inches apart, every barrier that had ever been built between them had gone, until it was just Brad leaning up and Ray leaning down until they met in the middle.  
  
It was so much better than Brad had ever hoped it could be. Ray kissed him like he meant it, like he’d been waiting for it for as long as Brad. His hand came up to press against Brad’s cheek, slid around to his hair and gripped it, holding onto Brad like he was afraid to let him go. Brad understood, wrapped his arms around Ray and held him tight, pressed up against his hard muscle and bone, felt him real and hot against his body.  
  
“I don’t know how to be Brad anymore without you at my side being Ray,” he whispered into Ray’s mouth, the words, the _confession_ , coming from somewhere deep inside himself he’d barely even acknowledged.  
  
Ray nodded, let out a breathless laugh. “I’ve known you since I was a teenager,” he said, pulling back a little so he could look at Brad’s face. “I learned how to _be_ Ray with you at my six. I can’t lose that, Brad.”  
  
“You won’t,” Brad promised. “I swear. I’m not,” he broke off, distracted by Ray’s lips, his neck, the flush in his cheeks. He brushed his fingers over Ray’s jaw line. “I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
“Aren’t you worried about shit? There’s all sorts of shit to be worried about.” Ray didn’t seem too worried, though, tilting his head to kiss Brad’s fingers, letting his eyes fall closed as Brad pushed them into his mouth.  
  
“No,” said Brad. “Like what?”  
  
“Uh.” Ray twisted away, tried to gather himself. “Well like DADT. They kick guys like us out of the Marines. We’re only allowed to be fucked by command, not each other.”  
  
Brad frowned. He hadn’t even… he thought back over the weeks, tried to remember, and he realised that not once had he even considered DADT and what ramifications it might have on him and Ray. Never thought about the consequences of a sergeant and a corporal. Jesus. Either Ray made him stupid, or…  
  
“But it’s _you_ ,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not some random grunt I wanna blow. I trust you. I mean, this isn’t anyone’s fucking business but yours and mine, and I trust you with my life.”  
  
Ray gave a reluctant smile. “You’ve got an answer for fucking everything, don’t you Iceman?”  
  
Brad shrugged. Most of the time these days he felt like he didn’t have any answers at _all_. “I just want this. You.”  
  
“You want me?” Ray was hard all over, spiky, but when he said that Brad wanted to pick him up and wrap around him, shove him down and cover him like a bomb shelter. He couldn’t believe it had taken him so long, so _fucking_ long to wake up to himself. He might not have all the answers, but the only one that _mattered_ was sitting in front of him.  
  
“Yes, you dumb fuckin’ hick,” he said. “You want me to fucking spell it out for you?”  
  
In reply, Ray kissed him again, harder this time, pressing both his hands against the sides of Brad’s face and holding him still, attacking his lips, his mouth, like he was driving into a war zone. Brad took hold of his hips and let him, just knelt there and let himself give in to it.  
  
“Ok, so now we’ve spoken about our feelings and gotten the pansy-ass sharing circle out of the way,” Ray said, between biting and sucking on Brad’s bottom lip. “Can we move on to the hardcore gay sex?”  
  
Brad laughed, pressing his forehead against Ray’s. “You see, that’s why I love you, Ray,” he said dryly. “You and your mouth.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, get up here.” Ray scooted back onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard. “Oh, look at you still in your blues. It’s like you just stepped off a recruitment poster. Aren’t you uncomfortable in those, Bradley?”  
  
Brad knelt on the edge of the bed and raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Is that a line?”  
  
Ray rolled his eyes. “A line? A line like _you’re my Patrokles_ was a line, Brad? What the fuck was _that_? You into some sort of kinky role-playing business, you’re on your own.” He sat forward and peeled off his wifebeater, dropping it to the floor, and Brad caught his breath, almost forgetting he was being insulted.  
  
“Wait, wait. I pour my goddamn heart out to you and you kick sand in my face. Nice, Ray.”  
  
Ray waved his hand. “Less talking, more stripping. Honestly, why are you still wearing clothes? What the fuck kind of big homo romance is this?” He was grinning as he spoke, looking happier than Brad had seen him for weeks. And something clicked inside Brad, then, something made sense.  
  
It didn’t matter what they did. Didn’t matter if this lasted for years, or petered out in weeks or never even got off the ground. They were always going to be _them_ , always going to have that. Nothing was ever going to change between them, because they were who they were because of each other. It didn’t matter if they were best friends or…whatever this could be. It didn’t matter if they were talking shit at a bar or undressing each other in a hotel room.  
  
It was so fucking obvious Brad almost had to laugh.  
  
“I’m sorry, Ray,” he said, grinning back and starting on his buttons. “You’ll probably have to be the one who schools me in the homo stuff. Aren’t you proud that you’ve finally got one up on me? You’re the expert at being gay. Congratulations.”  
  
Ray covered his heart with his hand, looked wounded. “Now who’s being mean? And here I was getting all ready to put out.” He tugged at Brad’s belt, pushed his coat over his shoulders, hands hot and insistent.  
  
“Oh, you’re gonna put out, huh,” Brad whispered, and kissed him again, couldn’t seem to stop kissing him. “At fucking last.”  
  
Ray lay back on the bed, grabbing Brad by his shirt and pulling him with him. “You been thinking about this?” he asked, as Brad braced himself over Ray, settling his knees on either side of Ray’s thighs and lowering himself down. “Tell me how much you been thinking about this, Brad.” He licked up Brad’s neck, bit at the sensitive skin under his ear.  
  
“Oh, fuck,” Brad whispered. Yeah, he’d been thinking about it, but thinking about it, and having Ray actually here, hot and solid beneath him, were miles apart. He caught Ray’s mouth again, kissed him long and slow, until Ray’s hips pressing up against him got too distracting, and he had to break away again, resting his head against Ray’s shoulder.  
  
“I thought you were just drunk,” Ray said in a soft voice, scratching his nails up Brad’s back and making him shiver. “That night? I thought you were just drunk and, I don’t even fucking know what, drunk and horny. Turns out you were just stupid.”  
  
Brad lifted his head. “Who the fuck are you calling stupid,” he murmured, and pressed his lips against Ray’s dimple, almost overwhelmed by the impossibility of it.  
  
“You, obviously. God, I’ve known you were a lost cause for years.” He hooked his ankle around Brad’s calf, writhed up into him, and Brad groaned against his face. “You’ve got no idea how often I’ve jerked off thinking about this, about you, about us together. It’s fucking obscene.”  
  
Brad knelt up, stripped out of his shirt and dropped back down, needing the feel of his skin against Ray’s, needing the knowledge that there was nothing left between them. “Tell me,” he insisted. “Talk to me, Ray.”  
  
“Oh, now you want me to talk. Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking demanding.”  
  
“You want me to be demanding?” Brad bit at Ray’s collar bone, worked his way across to his shoulder.  
  
“Kinda,” Ray admitted, a little breathlessly. “So I can check that one off the list.”  
  
“You have a _list_?” Brad’s mind was spinning. “Fuck, I didn’t even get past wanting you. After that, I’ve got no idea.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I’ve wanted this for years,” Ray said. “I came up with a few things.”  
  
Brad shook his head. The feel of Ray’s body under his was short circuiting his brain, causing all his nerve endings to fire off random sparks, like every part of them was electrified. He still couldn’t believe that Ray actually wanted it, this, _him_.  
  
“Years,” he breathed against Ray’s chest. “Jesus, Ray. Why didn’t you say something?”  
  
Ray pushed his hand through Brad’s hair, looked him in the eye. “Don’t ask me that. Don’t be a moron. I know you’re blond, but try to rub a few brain cells together, Sergeant, and answer that one for yourself.”  
  
That hit Brad in his stomach, like someone winding him. It must have shown on his face, because Ray smiled, touched his cheek. “Don’t even – I’m not blaming you. I think you’re insane for this, I honestly do, and I’m so fucking happy I think someone musta fucking spiked my drink. But seriously, Brad. You’re my Sergeant, you’re my team leader. You’re so straight I could use you to hang a picture. You got more pussy than Walt before Fliss made an honest woman out of him. You’re, like, six years older than me. Do you want me to go on?”  
  
Brad dropped his chin to Ray’s sternum, looked up at his face. “So what you’re saying here is that I’m your dream man?”  
  
Ray flicked his ear. “What I’m saying is that loving you is like having a crush on the hot cheerleader. No one expects that dream to come true.”  
  
“You sell yourself short all the time,” Brad said softly, wonderingly. “You don’t know how brilliant you are, Ray. And I’m only saying this because I’m trying to get in your pants,” he grinned, “but I’m fucking ecstatic you’re even looking twice at me. I was so sure I fucked things up that night.”  
  
Ray rolled his eyes, pressed his hips up against Brad. “You’re about to fuck things up _now_ , Brad, if you don’t get things moving. Jesus. Is _this_ what gay sex is all about? Braiding each other’s hair and talking about our emotions? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was pretty sure there’d be more sucking cock involved.”  
  
“Well now that you’ve gotten me in the mood with all your sweet-talking,” Brad said dryly, and covered Ray’s left nipple with his mouth, flicking his tongue. Ray moaned under him, pushed up with his hips again, rubbing up on Brad’s cock.  
  
“Are you serious? Because if that’s you _not_ in the mood, I think I’m gonna have to call this off, for my own safety.”  
  
Brad moved back up Ray’s body, reached down between them. “Don’t even say that,” he said softly. “In fact, don’t say anything at all for a little while, unless it’s to tell me about all the things you imagined us doing together. You think you can do that for me, Corporal Person?”  
  
“Yeah, ok, I _do_ like it when you’re bossy,” Ray said, a little breathlessly. “The Marines have fucked me up so bad for you, Brad.”  
  
“Mmm, go on,” Brad said, and got his hand around Ray’s cock, spent a moment having a mild freak out about holding one in his hand that wasn’t his own. But then Ray let out a soft, broken moan and Brad forgot just about everything that wasn’t the feel of him, the taste of him on his lips, the throb of him against his skin.  
  
“Brad, I want to do everything you can possibly think of, and then some more stuff on top of that,” Ray said, thrusting his hips up into Brad’s grip. “I’ve thought about _everything_ , about shit that probably isn’t even possible in three dimensions. Oh god, Brad, I just wanna get my _hands_ on you.”  
  
“Here.” Brad grabbed Ray’s hand, pressed it over his own cock, wrapped his fingers around it through his pants. “Come on, Ray, you can-”  
  
Ray let out another moan, fumbled desperately at Brad’s fly, pushed his pants down just far enough. “Wanted this,” he said, eyes closed, breathing hard. “Wanted this so bad. It killed me, thinkin’ of you off with that girl after we – after I had my chance at you.”  
  
“I’m yours now,” Brad said, and rolled them to the side, looked down between them at where their hands were hot and grasping. “You can take advantage of me, if you want.”  
  
Ray huffed out a laugh, turned it into a kiss pressed against Brad’s lips, his cheek. “Yessir, I’ll take that under consideration,” he breathed, and started jerking Brad’s cock properly, his hand slipping through the sweat and precome. Brad’s breath caught in his throat, rushed out in a gasp as Ray’s thumb rubbed along the sensitive skin under the head. “Oh, you like that?” Ray did it again, and then again, and Brad dug the fingers of his free hand into the bed as streaks and flashes of pleasure flew through him.  
  
“Please,” he said weakly, his grip on Ray faltering as he came closer and closer to the edge. “Ray, _fuck_.”  
  
“Yeah, Brad.” Ray’s arm was tensing, working Brad hard while Brad vaguely thought that he should be reciprocating, Ray’s cock still held in his loose grip. But then Ray’s thumb hit that fucking spot again, and Brad’s world flashed white.  
  
“I’m gonna,” he warned. “Ray, _Ray_ , I’m gonna come…”  
  
“Yeah, come for me, Brad,” Ray said, licked at Brad’s lips, bit his chin. “Come on, I’ve wanted this so long, Brad. Come for me now, just for me now, _please_.”  
  
The weeks of loneliness, the weeks of wanting, the weeks and weeks of silence, were all washed away under the force of Ray’s voice in his ear, at last, and Ray’s hard, callused grip on him. Brad came with Ray utterly surrounding him, tearing him apart and holding him together, his words guiding him through it like a beacon of light. He distantly heard himself moaning Ray’s name, opened his eyes and saw Ray’s right there, staring back at him, wide and dark and full of something Brad didn’t even have a name for. And still it ripped through him, pulsed out onto Ray’s skin, slicking the way between them.  
  
“Oh my god, Brad,” Ray gasped. “I can’t….”  
  
Brad blinked at him, pulled him in closer, pumped at his dick. “Yeah,” he panted, “Give it up for me, Ray.”  
  
He watched with something approaching awe as Ray threw his head back against the pillow and exploded, body tense and shaking and beautiful as he spilled in Brad’s hand. It was the most amazing thing, the most vital thing, the most _real_ thing he’d seen, or felt, in longer than he could remember. He wanted to hold onto the moment, store it inside himself, remember it until he died. Ray called his name, came with Brad’s name on his lips, and Brad thought that maybe a little part of him _had_ died, or maybe. Maybe just become Ray’s, forever.  
  
He got through the aftermath in a daze.  
  
It was like there was a rush of sound in his ears, crowding out rational thought. All he wanted to do was hold onto Ray, feel his body pressed in close, and fuck everything else, fuck the rest of the world. Ray made noises about getting up, getting tissues, but Brad just shook his head, wiped them off on his dress shirt and tossed it over the side of the bed before hauling Ray in under the covers, clutching at him tightly.  
  
“Oh, wow, I never pegged you for a cuddler, Brad,” Ray said, but he sounded content, happy to go with it.  
  
“I think it’s time for you to be quiet now, Ray,” Brad replied through a smile, expecting to be ignored.  
  
Ray, as usual, didn’t disappoint.  
  
“No, I’m serious. This speaks of some hardcore insecurity bullshit,” Ray started, sleepily, snuggling back into Brad’s arms. “What, did your parents not let you have a teddy bear as a child, Bradley? Was it just you and your carpet rake for years on end? I mean, I’m cool with this. If you need me to help you work through your issues, I’ve dealt with California for years now, I may still have my balls, but I know all about psycho-analysis and all that bullshit. You need me to be your little pet therapist, you know I’ve got your back…”  
  
It took Brad maybe two minutes to fall asleep to the sound of Ray talking, the soft vibrations rumbling through his chest, the noise washing over him and drowning him and pulling him under. Two minutes to get used to the sound of Ray’s words, two minutes to let himself go with them, two minutes to drift away.  
  
He dreamed they were on the beach, the waves crashing in.  
  
And they were happy.


End file.
